


Increments

by dashakay



Series: Increments [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-27
Updated: 2009-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-03 20:20:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 42,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashakay/pseuds/dashakay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes love and healing don't happen all at once, but in increments. After Scully's shooting, she and Mulder must learn to finally accept change in their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story ignores the events of _Two Fathers/One Son_. The Mulder and Scully in those episodes do not appear here. The story begins a few weeks after the end of _Tithonus_ and veers off into its own universe from there.

_ **Chapter One- Retire** _

He dreamed of a long hallway, white and sterile, smelling of the harshness of disinfectant and the bodies of the ill. He was running, running, trying to find room 874, but every time he glanced at a number on a door, it was the wrong number, sometimes too low, sometimes too high. Sweat streaming down his face, his tie flapping about him, he kept running, looking for her, knowing she lay dying.

  
She dreamed of nothing at all. She was suspended in a warm bath of repose, where she saw nothing, felt nothing.

  
When he woke, he realized he was still in bed with her. The sun was beginning to rise and like a thief, he crept out of bed and her bedroom to settle on the couch, pulling the quilt around his body.

  
When she woke, the bed seemed much too big and empty. Shivering in the early morning cold, she struggled to find a comfortable position for her aching body.

  
The next evening, Scully put down her book and yawned. "I think I'm off to bed," she announced, rolling her shoulders as if to get the kinks out.

Mulder looked up from his laptop and was surprised to find it 11 p.m. Another Saturday night in the lives of our two fun-filled Federal agents, he thought with a small smile to himself.

After Scully sequestered herself in the bathroom, Mulder automatically went for the closet to fetch the blankets and pillows for his couch bed. He'd adapted himself somewhat to her hours in the five days he'd been staying with her and he found himself ready to sleep, too.

Scully came out of the bathroom in her oversized flannel pajamas, the ends of her hair damp from face washing. He smiled to see her, drowning in material two sizes too large, face scrubbed free of makeup, looking like a teenage girl, the freckles standing out on her nose.

"What are you doing?" she softly asked.

"I'm getting the couch ready for bed."

She paused a moment, biting her lip, and he wondered what was running though her mind. "You don't have to do that," she finally said. "I mean, my bed's...um ...big and much more comfortable than that little couch."

Mulder blinked at her. "It's okay," he said. "I'm used to couches."

Her face melted into full smile that was all the more irresistible given the nervous eyes above it. "If you'd prefer the couch, I understand, but I slept really well last night with you there."

An offer nearly impossible to resist, Mulder thought. Scully, always so reticent, expressing need, and one that didn't involve being left alone. There was no way he could refuse, knowing that if rejected, she might never make such an offer again, as proud as she was.

He took a deep breath. "There's nothing I'd like better, Scully."

In the bathroom, while brushing his teeth, he thought about the night before, of sliding into her crisp cotton sheets that while clean, still smelled of her, of her skin and shampoo and soap. He had fallen asleep halfway through _L.A. Confidential_ and only woke when the tape ran out and CNN began blaring the news. He switched off the set and sat up to return to his post on the couch but he was so comfortable, ensconced in her soft bed under the down comforter, that instead he turned off the lamp and rolled over.

It felt entirely natural to share a bed with Scully, as if they'd been doing it for years. As if it was an ordinary Friday night in the life of a couple, watching a movie and falling asleep in their shared bed. He wasn't at all surprised to find how much he liked it.

But now, he wondered if they had been on the same page when he'd asked, "When do you think it'll be our time?"

She had answered. "I think it is our time." They were words heavy with promise but her meaning had been left unarticulated, for she had fallen asleep just after saying them.

Time for what? To deepen their friendship? To finally push the boundaries and go further?

Mulder changed into a tee shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Ordinarily he slept in just a pair of boxers, but he felt uncomfortable going to Scully's bed with so little on. He didn't want her misunderstanding his motives.

He felt shy walking into the private refuge of her bedroom, like a virginal bride heading off to the marriage bed, not quite sure of what to expect. Scully was sitting up, propped by several pillows, her glasses on, flipping through a magazine. She smiled to see him and he realized she was as apprehensive as he was.

Feeling conscious of his every move, he climbed in bed, careful to keep on the far side. Scully let out a small chuckle. "This seems strange, doesn't it?"

Humor would help, he thought. "I won't tell Kersh if you don't."

"It's been hard for me to fall asleep. I've always gone to sleep on my stomach, but I can't do that right now."

"Soon," he said. "You're healing."

Scully switched off the light and the room seemed too dark to him, a strange room that smelled of her, a room in which he could hear her breathing. The night before had been a happy accident, now he was here on purpose and it felt odd. He heard her roll onto her side, facing him. "Thank you, Mulder."

"For sleeping with you? I should be thanking _you_."

"No. For all of this. This is above and beyond the call of duty."

He paused, frozen to the mattress. Did she truly believe that he was doing all this—running her errands, taking out her garbage, folding her laundry—because he felt it was his duty as her partner? If anything, his motives were entirely selfish, an excuse to be around her, to spend time with her outside of the strict confines of their professional life. And not so selfish, too. Scully was his friend and she needed help. End of story.

"It's not about duty and partnership," he said, pulse rate beginning to pick up. "I'd like to think it's more than that."

Her soft hand touched his bare arm and she sighed. "It is, Mulder. I think we both know that now."

Mulder's breath caught in his throat. "Is this our time?"

She moved closer. "We may have to face the distinct possibility that we may never get the X-Files back. I think we have to take a look at our partnership .and recognize the other things that keep us together."

"Such as?" Mulder had his own answers, but he needed to hear hers.

Scully paused a moment and he swore he could hear her brain actively thinking. Finally, "Things like friendship. Trust. Understanding." She paused again and he wondered if she had anything else to add to the list. And she did. A simple word. "Love."

His stomach tightened as he remembered her incredulous face when he told her he loved her in Bermuda. "Love," he echoed.

Her voice was gentle. "It's been there a long time. Now we have to decide what we want to do with it."

"It's a big step," he admitted.

"Yes, it is," Scully agreed and she took his hand, just as she had the night before.

He moved in closer to her and Scully rested her head on his shoulder. Automatically, his arm wrapped around her back and he buried his face in her hair, breathing deeply her clean, womanly smell. Mulder felt her breathing soften and become regular and he realized she had dropped off to sleep.

Smiling in the dark, he loosened his grip on her body. Scully had an impeccable sense of timing—an unerring ability to fall asleep in the middle of late-night conversations about matters close to their hearts.

They'd have to find a way to discuss such things in the light of day, not while sharing a bed.

Mulder had never been able to get a decent night's sleep while touching another body in bed with him. He needed his space, not to be bumped up against another warm body. But this time he was oddly unwilling to let Scully go, unwilling to do without her sleep-pliant flesh molded to his. After all, most nights the only thing he hugged was the leather back of his couch. He couldn't feel the heartbeat of the couch, nuzzle his nose into the soft skin of the couch.

Conscious of the smile still on his face, Mulder sunk into sleep, feeling surrounded by an emotion that had eluded him for more years than he cared to account. He felt loved.

  
** _Chapter Two- Gratitude_ **

She blinked awake, realizing it was full morning and she had not awakened once in the night. Scully found herself on her uninjured side, with the unfamiliar press of human flesh against her back.

It had been shamefully long since she had awakened to that. She was surrounded entirely by him—the smell of male night-sweat, the soft rumbles of snores from his nose, the feel of his chest pressing into her and his erection firmly poking into her bottom.

It was intimate, terribly intimate to wake in such a fashion and she ruefully realized she and Mulder hadn't even kissed. Yet here they were, tumbled in bed together as if they had spent the previous evening making love.

She wasn't exactly sure how she felt about such intimacy.

It was easy to attribute the sudden rush of need for Mulder to a psychological aftereffect of her shooting. A sign of trauma.

Despite the warm body wrapped around her, Scully shivered.

She had told him she loved him, in so many words, before she fell asleep. She had not lied. Yes, she did love him, she had for many years, but she had never taken the luxury of stopping to fully consider the meaning of it. There are many manifestations of love and she did not know which form her feelings for Mulder took.

Mulder mumbled something in his sleep and moved against her body, his hard-on brushing back and forth across her bottom. She shivered again, but it had nothing to do with being cold, or being scared. Desire thrilled up her spine and as if against her will, she pictured being whole and strong enough to simply roll over and throw her leg over him. To, in one swift instant, thrust upwards and fill herself with him, rock against him, mindlessly take her pleasure and give him his. Just that mere thought and she felt her nipples stiffen against the flannel of her pajama top.

It's been too long, she thought. Too many years of denial and sacrifice. For one shimmering day, she simply wanted to make love, to have a strong, sound, unscarred body, to lose herself in wave after wave of pleasure. To drown in his skin, his hair, his smell, his muscles and sinew. To arch her back like a cat and call out his name as he surrounded her entirely.

But that wasn't their reality, their situation. Not yet.

Stealthily, she wiggled out of Mulder's grasp and he flopped onto his back, mumbling, "Bring more ammo." She stifled a laugh and got out of bed, feeling the now-familiar dull ache of healing injury and muscles overtaxed by physical therapy.

She didn't dare cast a backwards look at the man still lying in her bed, though she knew it was a pretty picture.

While standing under the hot needles of the shower, Scully decided to go to Sunday Mass. It had been far too long and she needed the ritual to feel centered and back in her routine. Normally she attended Mass with her mother, but she wasn't quite ready to start driving yet. St. Joseph's was just around the corner, not even a half block away.

She dressed as quietly as possible, pulling on a loose wool dress that wouldn't strain her sore abdomen. In the living room she scribbled a note to Mulder, explaining where she had gone. How strange it was to suddenly feel accountable to another, something she hadn't felt since Jack. A secure feeling, yes, but also slightly smothering.

It felt exhilarating to step outside of the house alone for the first time since her return from New York. The air was crisp and cold, but she was well bundled in her winter coat and hat. The sky was a Technicolor shade of blue and she felt somehow restored by the weak January rays of the sun. Slowly, she made her way to St. Joseph's, a process that took twice as long as normal in her weakened state.

She arrived at the small brick church in triumph and gratefully collapsed on a pew inside. The air smelled of dusty hymnals and incense and Scully felt immediately at peace. She was where she belonged.

The familiar and stately order of Sunday mass was a balm to her vaguely troubled soul. No matter how much trial and tribulation there was in her life, Mass was always the same, from the Processional, to the Homily to Communion. It brought back sepia-toned memories of the Scully family, lined up in one pew, scrubbed and starched in their Sunday best. Memories of the boys furtively nudging each other, of Maggie shushing them, her father singing off-key, of Melissa fiddling with the ribbons on the end of her braids and Dana staring at the stained-glass windows, wondering if God really listened when she prayed.

Now she knew he did. She felt his gentle presence in her times of greatest need. Her faith had supported her when Emily lay dying in the hospital, when she was on the ice with Mulder, wondering how they would survive. He was there, she felt it. It was at odds with everything she knew, her deep belief in the regular order of science and logic, but she had learned, over the past few years, to accept the duality of her beliefs. Yes, there was science, but it belonged to God.

After Communion, as the choir sang, she sat back down at the wooden pew and bent her head to pray. Scully didn't ask God for anything, she simply expressed her gratitude for being spared her life once again, for the love of her family, for having Mulder—however he was to fit into her life now.

When she rose with the rest of the congregation to receive the priest's final blessing, tears filled her eyes. No matter what happened in the future, it would be what was meant to be. It was as simple as that and she felt immense gratitude.

After the final hymn, she went to the small alcove at the side of the church and lit candles. When she did this after Mass, she always lit a candle for her father, one for her mother, one for Melissa, one for Emily and one for Charlie and Bill and their families. Then, she always lit an extra candle for Mulder. This time, she lit all the usual candles, but instead of one for Mulder alone, she lit one for the two of them.

She looked at the white candle, burning with a strong flame in its glass holder and she knew. At that precise moment she understood the form and shape and texture of her love for Mulder and she was no longer afraid.

A smile on her face, she walked out of the church and found Mulder, leaning against the railing of the steps, a white bag in his hands.

  
_ **Chapter Three- Continental Drift** _

Mulder stood in front of the church, scanning the exiting parishioners for Scully. She had given him a minor scare when he'd woken to find her gone from the apartment, but he found her note sitting on the kitchen table soon after.

After the flood of churchgoers slowed to a trickle, he poked his head inside the church. He had never liked churches, or temples for that matter, associating them with a God who had turned his back on him at an early age. Still, he admired Scully's quiet surety in her faith, despite the horror she had witnessed in her life in the Bureau.

Sometimes he wondered if his faith was simply faith in Scully.

Eyes scanning left, he spotted her small figure, standing in front of a bank of flickering candles, holding a long taper in her hand. Mulder suddenly felt like an intruder on a private moment and stepped back outside to wait for her to emerge.

Scully walked out the big wooden doors a short time later, an oddly dreamy expression on her face. She stopped in her tracks as soon as she noticed him. "What are you doing here?" she asked, brows knitting together.

He fumbled the white bakery bag between his fingers. "I went out for bagels and I thought I'd pick you up on the way." Mulder didn't mention his small but nagging fear for her weakened health, realizing how deeply important her sense of independence was.

She flashed him a skeptical look and he knew she wasn't buying a single word of it, but she simply slipped her arm through his and said, "Bagels? Did you get cream cheese to go with them?"

Mulder tapped the bag. "I would never forget the cream cheese. You can eat this, right?"

They started down the church steps. "I hope so, because if I eat another bowl of cream of wheat..."

With slow, deliberate steps, Mulder and Scully made their way home.

After breakfast, Mulder washed the dishes and Scully insisted on drying. "I'm tired of being waited on," she said with her 'don't argue with me' look.

When the last coffee cup was placed in the cabinet, Scully turned to him. "Mulder?"

He put down the sponge in his hand. "Yes?"

The little line appeared between her brows, the line that indicated she was thinking hard. She bit her lower lip. "We never finished our conversation last night."

His hand found the sleeve of her blue dress and he stroked the soft wool. "Yeah, well, somebody fell asleep in the middle of it."

Scully tilted her head up to him, faint rosiness spreading across her cheeks. He noticed how much healthier she was looking, how the deep shadows under her eyes were fading. Vibrant, he thought. She looks vibrant again.

Her voice came out in a slight stammer that was foreign to him. "Mulder," she said. "I...want to ...but I don't know where to start."

Mulder nodded, heart skittering. "I don't think I do either," he admitted, shrugging.

"It's time." She raised on tiptoe. Feeling out of his body, as if he were watching himself from a distance, Mulder bent and met her halfway.

At first their noses collided, but a small shift of their faces and their lips brushed against each other, simply the merest graze. It was the most chaste of kisses, but Mulder felt the electricity just the same.

"It was about time we got that right," Scully murmured, and despite his nerves, he laughed with her. He drew her into his arms and held her close, careful not to hug her too tightly and hurt her still-sore abdomen. Her face pressed against his chest and he kissed the top of her head.

"Are we really going to do this?" he asked, feeling a little foolish for needing the reassurance.

Scully pulled away and he noticed the sheen of tears in her eyes, reminding him of that horrible, hot night in his hallway as he'd desperately tried to stop her from leaving. "I don't think we have a choice," she simply said, with a lift of the chin. "We _are_ doing this."

Yes, he thought. It's all been slowly moving towards this. Scully and he were like two continents, moving at an infinitesimal rate towards each other, the collision inevitable. His hand found the back of her neck and he pulled her mouth to his again, nearly gasping at the  
sensation of her lips against his, full and soft and tasting of cinnamon tea.

She let out a soft whimper and opened her mouth to him, her tongue venturing to tentatively touch his. Mulder remembered all the times when he had been so close to doing this very thing, but had backed off for one reason or the other. His reasons now seemed trite and childish, as he and Scully merged in a kiss.

He had never before known that an entire universe could be contained in a single kiss.

They pulled apart and opened their eyes, stared at each other in wonder. Scully lifted her hand to her flushed cheek. "Oh, my," she breathed.

"Are you okay?" He squeezed her hand, marveling at how small it was in his own.

Smiling and nodding, she lifted his hand and kissed it, a gesture far different than when he'd done the same for her so many times before. Her eyes no longer held tears. "I'm overwhelmed," she said, "but in a good way."

Mulder kissed her temple. "Overwhelmed is a good thing. And when you're healed we can overwhelm each other even more." He took a deep breath, wondering if he'd been too presumptuous.

Her answer was to smile more widely, teeth and all. "I'll ask my doctor next week," she said.

Tugging her hand, he pulled her into the living room and sat her down on the couch. "In the meantime, how about I try to beat you in chess?"

Scully arched an eyebrow. "As if you could, Mulder."

He went off to get the set from the closet.

  
_ **Chapter Four- Reflected** _

Scully awoke from a fitful nap on the couch Tuesday evening, disoriented and with her neck aching. She grimaced, adding it to her rather long list of various aches and pains. She struggled to pull herself up off the couch and headed to her bedroom, deciding a hot shower might loosen up her sore muscles.

From her chest of drawers she pulled out a pair of dark blue flannel pajama bottoms and a long-sleeved tee shirt. She never thought she'd live to see the day but she actually missed her business suits. Oh, to be fully mobile and functional again, to zip down the halls of the Hoover Building in charcoal gray Ann Taylor, pantyhose and three-inch heels.

She unbuttoned the pajama top she had on and let it slide to the floor, along with the matching bottoms. Clad only in her panties, she walked to the mirror over her dresser.

The last time she'd looked at her torso in the mirror was right before leaving the hospital. She'd been avoiding the scar, pretending it didn't exist, but it was there and she knew it. With some trepidation, she allowed her eyes to stray to her abdomen.

The sight was not as horrible as she'd imagined. The scar was red and raised, but the doctors at NYU had done an excellent job of making the scar from the bullet hole, and the ensuing surgery, as small as possible.

Gently, she touched the scar. Almost healed, she thought. Soon I will be back to normal.

She touched her lips, remembering kissing Mulder in her kitchen on Sunday. She'd be back to normal soon, but their lives would never be the same.

Scully thought of young Agent Ritter. She wondered how his healing was progressing. The last time she'd seen him, when he came to visit her in the hospital, he'd seemed devoured by his own guilt. That and the fact that he'd been suspended without pay for 30 days and censured by OPR made her almost sorrier for Ritter than herself. Almost, but not quite. He'd been blinded by his inexperience and ambition and he would pay the price for the remainder of his career.

It didn't mean she hadn't hated him for his haste and stupidity. In her first few days of consciousness she had marinated in a pool of anger that he had done that to her, brought her down because he'd failed to follow simple law enforcement procedure. As fluids dripped into her arm via the IV and fluids dripped away with a catheter, she stared at the white ceiling tiles of her hospital room and wished an equally painful and humiliating fate for Peyton Ritter.

The rage had quieted somewhat when Ritter entered her room a week after the shooting, bearing an armful of hothouse flowers. The vibrant, cocky agent seemed a mere shell of himself, hollowed out by his guilt.

She'd touched the small cross hanging at her neck and realized it wasn't her place to hate him. Ritter was doing a good enough job of it by himself, hating himself enough for the two of them. The three of them, really, if you counted Mulder, who hovered outside her door like Cerebus at the gates of Hades.

As Ritter softly touched her hand and inquired after her health, she'd decided she had to make the effort to forgive him. It wouldn't be an instant process, for she was certainly no saint, but she had to be awarded points for trying.

Still staring at her reflection, Scully tried not to think of how close she'd come that day in Fellig's darkroom. She had cheated death many times, but this had been the closest yet.

She shuddered.

The door creaked open and startled, she turned to see Mulder stride in.

His face registered instant embarrassment to see her in such a state of undress. "I'm sorry," he said, face coloring. "I just got home and I thought you were in the bathroom, so I came in for my sweatshirt."

Scully smiled at his reflection in the mirror. Curiously, she found herself not upset by his invasion of her privacy. "It's fine, Mulder."

Mulder stripped off his coat and tie and laid them on the chair next to the bed. Slowly, he approached her until he was standing directly behind her. She stared at the two of them in the mirror and felt dwarfed by his height, noticing how her head barely cleared his shoulders.

"Is this okay?" he asked, fingers drawing a slow line down her spinal column.

She nodded, transfixed by their reflection, by the hungry expression she wore on her face and the reverent one on his. This is right, she thought. This is our time. Forget duty, forget the Bureau and what partners should as shouldn't be doing. It's the two of us now and this is right.

Mulder's fingertips lightly circled the snake on her lower back. "I've never really seen it before," he breathed. "I caught a glimpse in Antarctica, but I didn't get a good look." He bent his head to the tattoo and she felt his warm breath on her skin. "It's beautiful, Scully."

She shut her eyes and remembered the hot buzz of the needle in her back and the waves of pain and pleasure coursing through her as the serpent was etched into her skin. And later that night, the dull throbbing as Ed pulled her to him and their vodka-soaked mouths collided in a kiss.

Lifting his head, Mulder looked at her through the mirror, one hand rising to touch her nipple. She watched in fascination as it involuntarily hardened between his fingers. "Did you?" he asked, and she knew just what he wanted to know.

She half-wanted to lie, to tell him what he wanted to hear, but she found the truth spilling from her mouth. "Yes," she said, still watching as his fingers circled and lightly pinched first one nipple and then the other.

His face didn't betray any great shock, or even surprise. She bit her lip as his other hand found her right breast and started lightly dancing across her skin. "Why?" he asked, and drew her hair off the back of her neck to press his lips against her nape.

It was difficult to articulate her reasons in the best of circumstances, and even more so when he was touching her like that and kissing the back of her neck. Scully struggled for her words. "I could blame it on tainted ink or three vodka tonics, I suppose. I could say it was loneliness or a kind of rebellion against what I saw as controlling behavior on your part. I could say that deep down, I somehow knew I had cancer. But the real truth is that I wanted him and he wanted me."

Mulder pulled away from her neck and turned her around, looking directly into her eyes. His face was neutral, perhaps just a bit sad. "I wanted to know," he said. "Thank you."

She let out her breath. "It wasn't like me, not at all. It was just one of those things that happens. It had been so long for me, since well before you and I were partnered and for one night, I wanted to be touched."

He nodded. "I had a night like that, when you were gone."

Scully thought about how well they had learned each other's shorthand over the years, that she knew exactly what he meant by gone. The three months erased from her life.

Continuing, Mulder said, "It was my way of trying to forget, for just one night, that you were missing. I wanted to lose myself."

Her hand brushed the light evening stubble on his cheek. "Did it work?"

"Temporarily, while I was in the moment, but it all came crashing back afterwards and that made it worse in the end."

She wrapped her arms around his waist. "I don't think sex is good for forgetting. At least, I don't want it to be about that, a tool for avoiding the realities of my life. I want it to be about remembering, and honoring, what's good about you and me."

He kissed her lightly on the lips, a sadly sweet kiss that made her shiver. "We're really doing this, huh?" he asked in a tone of wonder.

Pleased to feel the same sense of wonder, she nodded.

He turned her towards the mirror again and she felt suddenly conscious of her nudity in his fully-clothed presence. But his eyes held nothing but respect. He touched her scar with light fingers. "This isn't so bad."

"I can live with a scar."

He unbuttoned his blue dress shirt and it floated to the ground. Scully looked in the mirror again and was struck by the contrast in their skin tones, hers light cream and his a warm gold, even in his winter pallor.

Mulder pointed to the puckering underneath his left shoulder. "Scars are a good way of remembering."

She let out a soft laugh. "Remembering that I shot you?"

"Well, that, too," he said with a sheepish grin. "But also for remembering how temporary life is and how important it is to live it. I forget that most of the time."

Scully kissed his scar. "I do, too. I want that to stop. When I die I want to be able to review my life and be able to say that I was loved."

His arms went around her and for the first time she felt the true security of being held. "You will be able to, Scully," he said hoarsely. "Because you are loved."

Against the heated skin of his chest, she smiled. "And I love," she said.

  
** _Chapter Five- Exhale_ **

Warmed by her words, Mulder led her to the bed and pulled the comforter to the side. She lay down without a word of protest, he noticed. It was funny how awkward and stumbling they'd been when they'd kissed in the kitchen on Sunday, but now it felt much smoother. Perhaps it was because they were finally reaching a place where they could talk about dark places, like their past.

If truth be told, at that moment he wanted nothing more than to rip her little white cotton panties off and finally claim what he'd coveted for so long, but he knew it was not possible. Not yet, he counseled himself.

Besides, he thought, the slow dance they'd begun somehow felt appropriate, given the glacial speed at which they had approached that point.

Scully looked up at him, eyes a translucent blue from the light of the bedside lamp. It cast a warm glow on her pale skin and coppery hair, and for a moment he could only stare at the regal lines of her face, thunderstruck.

Her hand reached out to him. "Are you planning on just standing there all night?"

It would be enough, he thought, but he began to undo his pants with thick fingers. Clad only in his boxers, he moved across the bed to her and crouched over her slender frame.

"I know you're not ready," he said, tracing the hollow of her collarbone with his fingers.

"No, not yet. Not physically. Mentally, yes, I'm ready." A mischievous grin flashed on her face. "But it doesn't mean we can't play." Her soft hand strayed to the fly of his shorts, where he was hard as granite. He stifled a gasp as her fingers slipped inside and lazily ran up and down his cock.

Mulder couldn't remember the last time sex had been sheer fun for him, when it didn't involve guilt, obligation or merely plain need. This was a whole new side of lovemaking for him, a languorous exploration on an early evening in winter. All he wanted to was to slowly map and chart every inch, every nook and cranny of Scully's body.

After all, they'd been having a love affair of the mind for many years. Now it was time for the body.

He marveled at how small, yet how womanly she was. Scully had been so frail and emaciated-looking after her illness and he had been pleased to see her regain her curves in the year after. With more than casual curiosity, Mulder had watched as her hips and breasts re-emerged with her health.

"Kiss me," she demanded in the greedy tone of a child.

Again, he was reminded of a universe contained in a kiss. It was a full bore assault on his senses, the feeling of her biting and suckling at his lower lip and plunging her tongue into his mouth. He had to fight to keep his eyes closed, to not drink in the vision of Scully, after so long, kissing him with abandon.

Her hands pushed his boxers down and he struggled them all the way off. "Fully functional, I see," she quipped and he lightly bit her on the tip of the nose.

"I am not a Ken doll."

"And I'm not Barbie, either," she said and slid off her own panties and set them on the bedside table.

"Aww, but we'd make such cute action figures, Scully," he said, trying not to let his head explode with the knowledge that he was lying on her bed with her, not a stitch of clothing between them.

Again, she circled his cock with her hand. "We're really doing this," she said and he bent closer to nip at the sweet flesh of her neck.

"Oh yes, yes we are," he said in a half-groan as she began to run her hand up and down him, stopping to tease the head of his cock with nimble fingers. Mulder dipped his head lower and took a nipple between his lips. God, she was sweet. Scully arched her back in response and he noticed a grimace passing over her face.

"Watch it," he warned, once again aware of her limitations.

"It's hard," she muttered between her teeth.

"Yes, it is hard indeed," he said, wincing at his own bad pun and the maddening feeling of the dance of her hand. He moved his lips to her other nipple as she laughed at his lame joke, and grazed it with his teeth. Mulder felt her fight to remain relatively still and was pleased to hear her breathing quicken.

It was taking a large amount of mental fortitude to keep himself in check now that finally the day of reckoning had come. Her skin was so fine and she smelled faintly of her white ginger shower gel and even more faintly of her growing arousal. All he wanted to do was to selfishly drive into her, finding her slick and hot, and allow the pleasure to explode around him.

Slow, he thought. This has to be slow.

He thought he might lose his mind.

His fingers inched down her body and for the first time he felt the crisp patch of hair between her legs. As soon as his hand landed on her mound, her hand tightened its grip on his cock. After briefly kissing her on her open, panting mouth, he asked, "Is it okay if I touch you?"

Scully's eyes flew open, feverishly bright. "Oh yes," she sighed. Her slender white legs spread a bit, and reaching between the reddish brown curls, his fingertips found her clitoris swollen and already wet with her excitement.

This is really happening, Mulder thought, grimacing against the rising commotion in his own body. We are doing this and God help me if I fuck it up. He gently brushed her clit with his index finger and he felt the shudder run through her body. "Don't move," he whispered, "or I'll have to stop."

"No, don't," she gasped, her left hand now circling and cupping his balls, the right now stroking in earnest from root to tip. It was so much better, so much sweeter than the feel of his own hand, so much more exciting than solo sessions on the couch with his silicone bombshells cavorting on the TV screen.

He was close, dangerously close to the edge now. Redoubling his efforts, he plunged his index finger into her, finding her as warm and snug as he'd imagined. Scully whimpered and threw her head back, and he tried to keep pace with her fingers, still lavishing his mouth on her breasts all the while.

In desperation, he attempted to distract himself, to focus on all the background checks he'd have to do the next day, the conjugation of the French verbs _etre_ and _avoir_. But he couldn't help being pulled into the present, to peeking at her flushed face, contorting in pleasure, to feeling the firmness of her nipples under his tongue. Scully's legs began to shake and he heard the breath sharply catching in her throat. Could it be? So soon? In his not-so-very-large wealth of experience, women just didn't up and have an orgasm after a mere five minutes of touching.

But it was real, she did, yes, she did, he felt her internal muscles rhythmically contract around his finger and heard the staccato cries from her mouth.

The triumph was enough to push him over the cliff, too. Even in the grip of her orgasm, Scully, bless her unselfish heart, had kept her hands busy on him and as soon as she started coming, he found himself past the point of no return.

His hands buried themselves in her silky hair and he clamped his eyes shut, running to and running away from release. But it was too late, he was there, he was there, God, he was there.

And then he opened his eyes, almost afraid to find it was a dream. It was no dream, Scully was lying beneath him. But he was ashamed to see he'd come on her stomach, like some pathetic teenager. Her poor abused abdomen, talk about adding insult to injury.

Still, Scully was a glorious sight, her hair fanned against the white of the pillow, a dusky flush rising in her pale cheeks. Mulder bent to kiss her mouth, stopping for a moment to admire the way her lips were slightly swollen and reddened with her passion. "Did I hurt you?" he hoarsely whispered, dropping beside her.

She shook her head, a tiny smile forming on her lips. "On the contrary. And sex is good for the healing process; it improves circulation."

Ah, the fun of bedding a doctor was finally revealed.

"I'm sorry about the mess." he said, face reddening.

Her head raised up a little and she appraised the small pool of semen on her stomach. "There's nothing to be sorry about."

"Hold on a second," he said and rolled off the bed and onto post-orgasmic rubbery legs.

Mulder returned with a damp washcloth and wiped her off, which elicited ticklish little laughs from her.

"I'll take it as a good sign that laughing doesn't seem to hurt much anymore," he said and rejoined her at her side. Mulder pulled the down comforter over them and sighed happily. He couldn't stop touching her, kissing her softly, to reassure himself that she was real, that it had truly happened.

"We'll have to do that again," she said with a most un-partnerlike gleam in her eyes.

He drew slow circles on her neck and shoulder with his tongue. "I have no objection," he said when he'd finally had his fill.

Scully yawned. "I just don't have much stamina right now..."

"Whenever you're ready, I'm ready," he whispered and she curled into him, damp and warm. He watched her fight her exhaustion, her eyelids and auburn lashes fluttering open and shut.

He smoothed her hair and held her as she let sleep take her away.

Mulder felt like he had been holding his breath for six years and had finally been allowed to let it out in one big gust of air.

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, he breathed with her until finally he, too, slept.

  
_ **Chapter Six- Revelation** _

Margaret Scully stopped by early Wednesday evening, just as the sun was setting behind the venetian blinds. Scully hadn't seen her mother since she'd left the hospital, as Maggie had come down with the flu. Now Maggie had been given the all clear by her doctor and arrived bearing Tupperware containers of chicken soup and loaves of banana and pumpkin bread.

They settled on the couch with cups of hot cider and some slices of the banana bread. "It's been difficult, not being able to see you all this time," Maggie said.

Scully looked at her mother's face, still beautiful, but creased with new worry lines. It disturbed her that so many of them must have come from worrying about her. "I know," she said, looking down at her hands folded in her lap. "I've missed you, too."

Maggie looked around the living room with an appraising eye. "The house looks nice and neat. Fox must be a better housekeeper than one would think, given that he's a bachelor."

Grinning at the mother's outdated terminology, Scully said, "He's been very patient and generous." She fought back thoughts of the night before, of the glorious release of finally being with each other on a physical level.

"Dana," Maggie said with a proud rise of the chin that reminded Scully of herself. "We need to talk about your future."

"My future?"

Maggie nodded. "I worry about you, about this life you're leading." Scully winced with pain as she saw tears glimmer in her mother's brown eyes. "I couldn't have borne it if I had lost you this time."

Scully was well aware that Mulder had been the one who'd had to call her mother with the bad news, shortly after he arrived in New York. She couldn't even begin to imagine what it had been like for her mother to pick up the phone that night and hear the news that another of her daughters lay gravely injured from a gunshot wound.

She took Maggie's hand and squeezed it. "I'm sorry, Mom." Tears were beginning to well in her own eyes.

Maggie squeezed back. "I know you are, Dana, but I'm scared for you."

Just then they heard the rattle of the door lock and Mulder strode in, back from work. She smiled to see him, tall and imposing in his navy suit and red tie, her man now, her lover, her partner.

Her mother said a pleasant hello to Mulder but Scully caught Maggie giving her a sideways glance. She got an even more significant look when Mulder bent to kiss her cheek.

For a few minutes, Mulder joined the two women and pleasantly chatted about trivialities, but then he rose and announced that he might go see the Gunmen. He went into the bedroom and emerged a few minutes later in jeans and a turtleneck and after kissing Maggie and Scully goodbye, fled out the door.

Scully noticed yet another look from Maggie. She smiled at her mother. "You keep looking at me as if I've sprouted a third eye or something, Mom."

Maggie delicately dabbed at her lips with a napkin. "You and Fox seem...awfully close."

I'll say, Scully thought, picturing Mulder's warm lips on her neck. She chose her words carefully. "Mulder and I are close. He's been my partner for six years."

Shaking her head, Maggie said, "That's not what I meant, Dana, and you know it. I'd have to be a lot more nearsighted that I am to miss the way he looks at you, and you at him."

Scully inwardly sighed. Okay, time to fess up. She'd never been good at keeping the truth from her mother, even as a teenager. "Things are changing between us. They have been for a long time, but we've reached a new understanding about where we stand in each other's lives."

A faint smile quirked on Maggie's lips. "I'll take that as Dana-speak to mean you love him."

Scully nodded, feeling embarrassed to discuss the topic with her mother. As much as she loved Maggie, and she did wholeheartedly, she had never felt overly comfortable about discussing matters of the heart with her. That role had been reserved, since puberty, for Melissa, who was able to listen to her sister without dragging in Catholic theology or advice straight out of the 1950s. At times like this, she missed her sister's forthright, if New Age-tinged, counsel.

Maggie continued, "And he loves you. It's plain as day on that face of his."

"This is new to us, Mom. We're trying to figure everything out."

A pained expression passed across Maggie's careworn face. "On one level, I'm happy for you, Dana. You know I want you to be happy more than anything. But I can't help but want a more settled and peaceful life for you, for you to have a man in your life who doesn't represent so much danger."

If only it could be that simple, Scully thought. She set down her plate of banana bread, no longer hungry. "I know that's what you want for me," she sighed, "but it's not the reality of my life. My life is dangerous. It's often horrible and terrifying. I've been hurt and violated in ways I don't even want to fully consider." Scully took a deep breath, exhausted by the weight of her emotions. "However, what I'm doing is right and deep down I love it. I'm sorry for all I've put you through, but I can't give up on this and I can't give up on Mulder."

"That's what worries me, that you're in this because you want his love and approval, that you're doing it all for Mulder."

Scully shook her head. "No," she said, voice cracking. "It's not about Mulder, not entirely. I love my job, I love solving puzzles and answering previously unanswerable questions. I love how my science is being pushed in new directions. I love being an agent and being able to mix medicine with investigation. In the end, nothing makes me happier."

Maggie squeezed her hand, but said nothing.

She continued, "It's hard for me to tell you this, Mom, but I love him. I've never loved anyone like this, unconditionally. No one knows me like Mulder and no one loves me like him. No one possibly could."

Her mother smiled through the tears beginning to trail down her cheeks. "I know he's a good man, sweetie. I watched his anguish when you were taken. But I can't help wanting something easier for you."

Leaning over, Scully kissed her mother's cheek. "I know you do, but you're going to have to accept him in my life and hopefully you can learn to be happy for me."

Maggie kissed her back, smelling, as always, of Chanel Number 5. "I remember my own mother telling me that if I married your father it would be nothing but heartache for me, that I'd always be alone while he was at sea and I'd probably be widowed young. I think I told her many of the same things, Dana."

Scully felt a pang that she'd never have a similar conversation with her own daughter. The chain from mother to daughter would end with her.

She shook off the dark thoughts and smiled for her mother's benefit. "Come on," she said, handing her mother a tissue from the coffee table. "Let's heat up some of the soup you've made for me. Mulder is good at keeping my apartment clean, but no one will ever accuse him of knowing how to cook."

Maggie helped her up and they went off to the kitchen, a new level of understanding between them.

End of Part 1 of 5.


	2. Chapter 2

** _Chapter Seven- Awakening_ **

She was hovering on the first plane of sleep when the give of the mattress awakened her. "What?" she mumbled, disoriented, unsure of where she was. Opening her eyes, she saw Mulder's face hovering above hers, shadowed in the dark of the room.

His lips pressed against her own, tasting of Crest and something darker. Whiskey, perhaps. "I didn't mean to wake you," he whispered.

It still wasn't quite registering with her that they were now lovers. That they'd well and truly crossed the final border. It was a realization that filled her with a small fear, one of the unknown, but also a new twinge of hope that was foreign to her. "Hey," she said in a lazy, sleepy voice. "Have fun with the boys?"

Mulder brushed away strands of hair that had fallen across her face. "The usual. Played some video games, hacked into the Pentagon."

A brief survey with her hands on his body revealed he had come to bed in his boxers and nothing else.

"I'm sorry I missed the excitement."

His hands moved down the front of her pajama top, deftly unbuttoning as they went. "My, what sexy sleepwear you have, Scully."

She poked him in the side, producing a satisfying yelp. "Any more cracks about my pajamas and I'll never show you what I have in the bottom drawer of my dresser."

He said nothing, but carefully slid off her pajama bottoms. Against the pillow, Scully shut her eyes. So this is what it's like to have a regular man, she thought. It meant perks like amorous middle of the night awakenings. There were definite advantages to the new situation.

Without further ado, her panties were removed and Mulder moved to the foot of the bed, bending his head to her. Gentle hands spread her legs a bit and she felt his warm breath stirring the curls between her legs.

He raised his head and in the faint light she caught a dangerous grin on his face. "I've been thinking about this all night," he said, hands running up and down her thighs. "I nearly got a speeding ticket, rushing back so I could taste you."

Oh God. Scully felt the heat rise in her face and between her legs. Her brain struggled for a comeback and finally found one. "You mean you sat around with the Gunmen, thinking about this?"

"Oh yeah." His voice was a silken purr. "Don't worry, I didn't say a word. I just sat there and let my mind wander while we downloaded pictures of Dealy Plaza."

Mulder reached up and grabbed a pillow. "Can you lift your hips, Scully?" he asked and she shivered.

She obeyed, pleased to see it didn't seem to hurt at all to move her pelvis tonight, that her muscles were healing. Mulder slid the pillow under her bottom and again bent his head. Holding her breath, Scully suddenly felt self-conscious, suddenly far too aware that Mulder, her partner of many years, was about to go down on her.

In the past she'd never been able to derive much pleasure from receiving oral sex, contrary to popular theory about women. It just seemed rather icky to her that a man would want to put his mouth there and lick her. Her lovers had been rather perfunctory about the act, as if going down on her was a box to be checked off before proceeding to the main event.

This time, she lay back and tried to enjoy it. Mulder knows there's not going to be any event, he's doing this because he wants to, she told herself. So relax.

He spent a long time teasing her, kissing and sucking at the insides of her thighs, skimming his fingertips along her folds, but not parting them. Almost against her will, Scully began to squirm against the mattress at his single-minded ministrations. Briefly, he moved up the mattress to kiss her with consuming ferocity and then returned to his post between her thighs to open her with warm fingertips. It's like electricity, she dimly thought as she felt his tongue make one smooth trip along the length of her. She heard him groan and he lifted his head again, licking his lips. "You're delicious," he pronounced.

"Yeah, right," she said, wrinkling her nose.

He shook his head. "You have no idea." Scully felt him move up the bed again and suddenly his face was above hers. "Taste yourself on me and you'll know."

His lips, hot and swollen, closed down on hers and instinctively she opened her mouth to him, letting his tongue slide in. She moaned at her own raw flavor on his lips and tongue. It sent waves of new arousal running down her legs and straight to her clitoris. Her hair felt like it was about to stand on end.

Mulder pulled away from her mouth. "Do you want me to go back?"

Wordlessly, she nodded and gave his bare shoulders a push with her hands. For a brief moment, she wished for her body to be fully healed so she could feel, for one instant, the rough satin of his skin pressing fully on hers. No barriers, no need for caution.

You can't have everything at once, she told herself.

Besides, as consolation, Mulder was back between her legs, the teasing over for good. His tongue alternated between circling her clit and sliding up and down her slick inner folds. Her grip on his shoulders increased with the rate of her breathing as conscious thought blurred into bursts of sheer want and need.

A cry ripped from her mouth as she felt Mulder's lips surround her clitoris and gently suck. Sweat trickled down her forehead and she urged him on with hands and voice. "Don't you dare stop, please don't stop, please..."

Was that truly her, uttering such incoherencies? Scully shrugged off the intrusive thought and bent her knees to give him better access. Her abdominal muscles began to ache a bit, but any pain was overridden by the exquisite sensations Mulder was producing in her.

Suddenly, she jerked. Mulder had abruptly slid two long fingers into her. Overload, she dreamily thought as his fingers joined his lips and tongue in cadence. It's too much, too good, too, too much.

She felt her orgasm approaching, just over the horizon and she struggled towards it, feeling as if she were climbing an icy peak. Her teeth ground together as she reached the top and stood, suspended at the summit, for what felt like eternity.

And then she fell.

Waves, she thought, the waves just won't stop.

And then she didn't think for a long time.

When breath finally returned to her, she realized she'd bitten her lip. She tasted the iron tang of blood in her mouth and touched her finger to the wound. Mulder crawled back up the bed and curled up next to her.

Words, she thought. Must. Find. Words.

"I think you almost killed me," she finally said, winding her fingers around his bicep.

He brushed his lips, still tasting of her pleasure, against hers. "Good. That was my plan all along," he cracked.

"I knew it." She yawned.

"Am I boring you, Scully?"

"Hardly, it's just late and I'm kind of worn-out. I'm sorry that I can't reciprocate tonight."

Mulder's forehead brushed against hers. "This was an introductory offer, Scully. A freebie. Next time, though, you have to pay."

She chuckled, wondering how she had gotten to be her advanced age without having realized that sex could be funny.

"I'll keep that in mind," she mumbled, her head dropping down onto his shoulder.

I should thank him, she thought, as her eyes began to shut of their own accord. I should be telling him I love him after something like that. But instead, she found herself falling asleep in the middle of the conversation.

It was getting to be a routine for them.

  
_ **Chapter Eight- Ancient and Modern History** _

On Thursday evening, Mulder drove home through icy winter rain that spattered against the windshield. Home, he thought, turning on the wipers. Where is my home? He had been back to his apartment exactly twice since Scully's shooting, once to hastily pack a bag for New York, the second time to gather more clothes and flush the dead fish down the toilet. His phone calls were forwarded to Scully's apartment, as was his mail. He had a key, a toothbrush hanging in the bathroom rack, a drawer in her bureau and about a quarter of the bedroom closet.

Did that make it his home, though?

It was still Scully's apartment, of course. The striped couch and all the other furniture all belonged to her. The pictures on the end tables and fireplace mantel were of her family and friends. Unless he happened to leave his shoes in the living room, there was no way to tell a man had been in residence for two weeks.

Scully's health and strength were slowly seeping back into her. She no longer slept most of the day and had been catching up on her stacks of pathology journals instead, tapping notes into her computer for a possible article of her own. She no longer had nightmares and had stopped wandering the house in the middle of the night. Her doctor had told her on Thursday that she could begin driving again and set her date for a return to work to a week from Monday, half days at first.

Of course he was delighted to see her blooming and thriving again. Mulder had been devastated to see her in the ICU, white as typing paper, with tubes seeming to come out of every orifice. He had been enveloped in the worst kind of dark, dank fear and his hands had begun to shake uncontrollably and his legs refused to properly hold his body up.

But, he couldn't help reflecting as he stopped at a red light, what was going to happen to them when they finally returned to the routine of their regular lives?

One of these mornings Scully was bound to wake up, touch him softly on the arm and say, "It's time for you to go home." Trouble was, he wasn't sure he really had a home anymore.

It was sentimental to admit, but his home had become her bed. Her bed was a place of serenity where he could feel her heart beating against his as they drifted to sleep together. Some men might turn to liquor, some to meditation to find their peace, but his salvation was the simple wood framed bed trimmed with crisp, white sheets. No wonder he had slept so poorly in the past.

Mulder was chagrined to be so insecure about what was happening between Scully and him. However, it had been years since he'd had a woman in his life, let alone a woman whom he loved so thoroughly.

At Oxford he'd seen a few women until he settled down the last two years with Phoebe. He'd loved her with a frightening tenacity, even after she betrayed him time and time again. Mulder had been bewitched by the idea that this gorgeous, brilliant creature with her upper-crust accent and feral eyes could possibly want him, too.

He returned to the States a shattered man, after Phoebe had finally left him for good, left him for the posh attentions of Lord Somebody of Inbred Genes. Never again, he vowed.  
He would never let one woman ensnare him body and soul like that, leaving him vulnerable to the raw pain he now felt.

In his early years with the Bureau, Mulder became something of a serial boyfriend-two months with this one, four with another. He was ashamed to admit that now he could barely associate faces with names. Was Jane the tiny brunette? Did Suzanne have the throaty laugh? He had treated his women well, had a great time, but as soon as a serious tone insinuated its way into the relationship, he was out of there like he'd been shot from a cannon.

And then Diana showed up. He could still clearly remember the first time they met, at a crime scene in Arlington, her forthright handshake and brown eyes brimming over with intelligence. Mulder didn't waste any time; they became lovers that very night after sharing pizza and a bottle of wine at her apartment.

For the first time in years, he refused to run. Diana was a good lover, a great talker, someone who shared his growing interest in the paranormal. He confided in her his secrets and she shared hers on late nights in her candlelit bedroom. Like Phoebe, Diana was gorgeous and patrician, but she didn't share his former lover's cruel streak. Instead, she was sweet and loving in their private hours, someone who made him forget his pain, forget the young boy who'd lost his sister.

He hadn't yet told Scully that he had lived with Diana for nearly a year. Overnights blended into weekends and whole weeks until finally they sublet their respective apartments and got one of their own. They painted walls and bought furniture. At night they returned home from their various Bureau duties and worked on their new project, the X-Files. Sometimes they got the Sunday paper and looked through the real estate section, planning the house they would someday buy. Somewhere in the mess of his bedroom closet he still had a box of checks from their joint account, embossed in black: Fox Mulder and Diana Fowley.

Then, one night, she came home late, set her briefcase on the dining room table and announced she was leaving for a post in Berlin. Stunned, he looked at her face, suddenly hard and closed off to him, and wondered if he'd even truly known her in the past three years. Mulder had been aware of her ambition, her desire to make a name for herself in the Old Boys Club of the Bureau, but he still could not fathom that she'd so easily dust herself off and leave him. But she did, gone within a week, her only contact with him an annual Christmas card.

Shortly after Diana's departure, Mulder began regression therapy with Dr. Werber and the X-Files slowly began to consume his life. Who needed love when he had the intoxicating search into the past and his quest for the truth?

And now, Dana Scully. His partner, his friend, skeptic to his believer. The kind of woman he would have turned his nose up to in the past, considering her too cold, too rational. But she slowly unfolded to him over the years, revealing her rich layers of depth, the beauty of her razor-sharp mind, the kindness and generosity of her soul.

He was aware that he tended to put her on a pedestal sometimes, to idealize Scully. Truth was, there were times when he wanted to take her by her slim shoulders and shake her, screaming, "You saw it! Why can't you believe it?" Her stubbornness on relying so heavily on her science had frustrated him to the point of tears on too many occasions. When it came down to it, Scully had her flaws and he had his own, but they complemented one another, oil to vinegar, salt to pepper.

Mulder couldn't pinpoint the moment when he first began to love her. His love had grown in increments, so slowly he didn't notice until it was far too late to do anything about it. It had become a part of him like his flat feet and the mole on his cheek.

Licking his lips, he swore he could still taste her there from the night before, despite having brushed his teeth and eaten two meals in the interim. Strangely enough, his most well loved and well-used fantasy of Scully in the past had been about going down on her, of Scully trusting him enough to spread her legs for him and allow his tongue to slide into her most secret and forbidden places. And when the time had finally come last night, he'd had a moment of sudden fear that perhaps the reality would pale next to his rich fantasy life.

He had been wrong. Scully had tasted better that he'd imagined. Mulder had never understood other men who disliked eating a woman. In his past he'd been a connoisseur of the flavors of all the women he'd slept with. He might not be able to put names to some of the faces, but line them up and he would be able to tell them apart by their personal taste. Scully had a rich taste that reminded him of a good Bordeaux rolling over his tongue, full of smaller notes of honey and black tea.

Parking his car a few houses away from her building, Mulder again licked his lips. It pained him to think that it had taken a horrible injury for the two of them to finally let down their guard and become lovers, but it had happened and he was glad. He had run and hidden from love for far too long, buried himself in his work and his obsession to avoid the pain he saw as inevitable. Despite his greatest efforts, however, love had found him. There was no point in fighting it any longer. He and Scully would simply have to learn to cobble some kind of life together, despite their often glaring differences and solitary natures. Despite the cloud of danger and tragedy that seemed to constantly hang over their heads.

We can do it, he thought, switching off the ignition. We can try. We'll find a way and somehow figure out how to be happy. It isn't beyond our reach.

Buoyed by an unusual sense of optimism, he headed down the sidewalk to what he hoped had become his new home.

  
_ **Chapter Nine- Shiver** _

Despite the chill in the winter night air, they traveled down the sidewalks at a deliberate pace. They were walking much slower than either was accustomed to, but it didn't particularly bother Scully. She had become used to operating her body in an overly conscious manner since the shooting.

She tilted her head up to Mulder. "This was a good idea, don't you think?" The breath came out of her mouth in little clouds of steam.

Squeezing her hand, he smiled. "I had to air you out. No more cabin fever."

Her physical therapist had ordered a half-hour to forty-five minutes of walking every day, so she had dragged Mulder into the cold night after dinner. They had stopped for coffee at a cafe on M street, crowded with Saturday night yuppies, and now were on their way home.

Home, Scully mused. Is it my home or ours now?

Either way, she was supremely content to be moving again, to be out of the house, to have a belly full of decaf mocha, her lips still tasting of the bittersweet liquid. And content to be walking down the street, holding Mulder's hand.

Sometimes it was the simple things that had to be captured for savoring later. She was guilty of not being able to exist in the moment, of constantly looking ahead to the big picture. Right now she didn't want to think about the big picture, of what would happen when she returned to work, about what to do about the X-Files. That was for another time. All she wanted to do was breathe in the crisp, cold air and walk by his side.

She was going to have to learn to accept contentment.

Two blocks from her apartment she began to tire and by unspoken accord they slowed down further still. "Mulder?" she asked, the grip on his hand tightening.

He bent his head to her, nose and lips reddened by the cold. "Yeah?"

"It's funny, I've had a lot of spare time to think lately. I've been trying to figure out ..." Her voice trailed off. Scully had never been good at articulating her most personal feelings and her words were slow in coming. "I've been trying to figure out when you became so important to me."

Mulder stopped walking, a quizzical expression on his face. "Did you come up with anything?"

She nodded. "I think it was in Alaska, when I sat by your bedside for almost four days. Something clicked then and I began to understand that you were the most important person in my life."

He inhaled sharply, a quick inrush of breath. "That means a lot to hear that from you."

They were standing under a street light at the corner and Scully observed how the glow picked up filaments of gold and green in his eyes.

"I resented it for a long time," she continued. "I resented that my family, my friends, my goals had taken a back seat to you, that you could run off and get yourself in trouble and I'd still come running because you had become so significant to me."

"I'm sorry, Scully," he muttered.

She held up a warning hand. "No, wait, I'm not finished. What I was going to say was that I slowly realized it went both ways with us, that I was important to you, too."

He ran his tongue across his lower lip, a gesture that made her want to pull that lip into her mouth. "You are, you know."

"I know," she said, nodding sagely. "Over time I understood that that was what made our partnership so special and unique. And that what we had went beyond the boundaries of mere partnership. I also realized that I was letting the other things in my life diminish of my own accord, that I had no one to blame but myself."

Resting his chin on her head, he said in a low voice, "We do get awfully focused, don't we?"

She emitted a gentle laugh. "Yes, yes we do. I want that to change. Our professional lives are important but I think I need to explore the other aspects of my life more from now on—see my family, make new friendships, love the man in my life."

Mulder pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her. She buried her face in his neck, smelling the wool of his turtleneck and underneath it the faintest whiff of chlorine from his afternoon swim. It was times like this that everything seemed so simple—man loves woman, woman loves man. Yet deep down, she could feel the fear of the unknown thrilling up her spine.

I don't want to need him like this, she treacherously thought. And then another thought immediately contradicted the first one. It had been a long time, perhaps never, since she had needed anyone. Perhaps her true weakness all this time had been never allowing herself. She was still strong in sprit, opinionated and intelligent. Loving Mulder would change none of those things. She wouldn't let it, not as long as she had breath in her body.

Mulder kissed the top of her head. "We've reached a crossroads, Scully. What you said the other night was right. If we never get reassigned to the X-Files, we're going to have to take a hard look at our lives and priorities."

She smiled. "For the record, Mulder, I think we'll find a way eventually. We're nothing if not resourceful."

"Even so, you're entirely correct. This quest we've been on is important, but I can't go on living only for the truth. It's not enough, not anymore."

"We can try, Mulder, but knowing us..."

She sighed.

"Trying will have to be enough."

A gust of wind blew in from the North, whipping her hair across her face and prickling her skin into a multitude of goose bumps, despite her sweater and wool coat. Scully's teeth began to chatter.

Mulder tugged at her sleeve. "It's cold. Let's go home."

Inside, the apartment was warm and smelled of the tomato soup and grilled cheese they'd made for dinner. Nursery food, bland childhood dishes intended to avoid upsetting her delicate digestive system. Lately, Scully had been dreaming of spicy food—green Thai curries, empanadas stuffed with shrimp and cilantro, scraping up an Ethiopian wat with a piece of spongy injera bread.

Despite the heat of the room, she was still shivering as she drew off her coat and hung it in the hall closet. Mulder, ever observant of her physical state, asked, "You cold?"

She nodded.

"Why don't you take a shower?"

"I took one before dinner, remember?"

He moved behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder, the other rising to caress the swell of her breast under the lambswool. His whisper was husky in her ear. "I said, why don't you take a shower?"

Her nipples peaked against the material of her bra and she found herself nodding. "I'll get it ready," she said and headed for the bathroom.

Mulder was right, the hot water felt magnificent coursing over her chilled body. She had just reached for the soap when she heard the rings of the shower curtain pulling across the metal rod. Mulder stepped in, a slightly sheepish expression on his face. "Is there room in here for two?"

"In your case I'll make an exception."

Scully moved aside so he could have a chance at the hot water and while he bent his head back to get his hair wet, she took the opportunity to look, really look at his body.

It certainly wasn't the first time she'd seen him naked, but like staring at an Impressionist painting, she saw something new every time she looked. This time she let her eyes travel from his broad shoulders down the lightly muscled expanse of his chest and flat stomach to his penis, flaccid but still impressive, resting in a forest of wiry dark curls.

Her mouth watered at the sight, she was amused to discover. Scully loved his mind, his soul, but she was just learning to appreciate the delights of his body. There had been a few new discoveries over the past week, that his nipples were as sensitive as any woman's, that his armpits were extraordinarily ticklish, that he loved to have his balls stroked when she touched him.

She wished, as she always did when she was alone with him, that she was in full form, that she could sink to her knees to the bottom of the tub and take him in her mouth, sucking him to full hardness while the water sprayed over them.

Mulder opened his eyes, water running over his face in rivulets, and she noticed how his pupils were dilated, a sure sign of growing arousal. "What are you looking at?" he asked.

She moved closer, until their bodies were a mere inch from touching. Her hand strayed over the firmness of his ass. "You," she rasped.

"Do you like what you see?" Mulder pressed into her and she felt his growing erection against her belly.

"Oh yeah." His large hand reached around to the back of her neck to tip her face up for a kiss. Opening her mouth to him, she slipped her tongue into his mouth, allowing it to twine with his. Her hand found him flaccid no more, full and long and ready for her. The wetness pooled between her legs, her clit throbbing with blood. She had to fight a terrible urge to wrap her legs around his waist and slide down onto his cock.

Eyes still closed in the kiss, Scully heard him fumbling for something and opening her eyes she saw he'd grabbed her bottle of shower gel. "We've got to get you clean, Scully."

She didn't bother repeating the fact that she'd already showered not two hours before. Not when he worked the gel into suds between his hands and began to spread the foam across her breasts. All she could do was lean against the wall for support as he stroked and circled with attentive fingers. God, sometimes she swore she'd forgotten what it felt like to be touched like this, to feel her body humming alive with voluptuousness.

One of Mulder's hands kept at her left breast, while the other moved between her legs. She gasped. The feeling of his slick, soapy fingers sliding between her swollen folds was so extraordinary she had to bite her lips.

"I love to touch you," he moaned into her ear. "I love touching you and watching your face at a time like this, so alive and turned on." One and then two fingers pushed into her and she bent her knees a bit to take him in further, nearly screaming at the sensation of fullness. "Hang on, Scully, because I'm going to fuck you. I want to make you scream."

Her eyes shut as three fingers now slid in and out of her, roughly taking her. In her most outrageous flights of fancy, she had never imagined him saying such erotic things to her, or been able to imagine herself enjoying it. On the contrary it only made her wetter, hotter, closer to the edge of insanity. Mulder's other hand joined the first between her legs, pushing against her clitoris in a way that made her breaths come out in ragged pants against his shoulder.

"Ah, Scully," he sighed, "if I had only known it could be like this."

Wordlessly, she agreed as her muscles became taut in readiness for her orgasm. His mouth again found hers and she wrapped her arms around his waist for support as he crushed her lips in a desperate kiss.

She pulled away from his mouth. "I...I can't stand it," she crooned, feeling the waves approaching.

His mouth curled into a dangerous smile. "If only you could see yourself right now."

Her head bumped against the wall. "So close..." she panted.

And then his fingers pulled out of her, still slick with soap and her juices. She felt his index finger push up against her rectum and she froze against the wall. Was he going to do it? One smooth motion later and his finger was buried in her anus. The shock was enough to spill her over, crying out sharply as she felt the coursing waves not only in her clitoris, but her anus, her legs, her stomach and all the way up her spine to her neck. It felt like no climax she'd ever had before, darker and more powerful.

As soon as her body stopped quaking from the force of her orgasm, she fell forward, muscles gone to rubber.

Mulder was there to catch her.

Scully buried her burning face in his chest and he held her until her breathing finally slowed. She looked up at him in amazement. "W-where did you learn to do that?" she stammered, brain slow to snap back into focus.

He looked a bit embarrassed. "Are you okay with it? I didn't hurt you, did I?"

Laughing, she shook her head. "Hurt me? You've got to be kidding, Mulder." Letting out her breath, she slid her hand down his body and found him still hard. "No one has ever done that to me before."

He shrugged, as if attempting to be nonchalant, but she also felt him tense as she began to move her fingers up and down his hard length. "Call it improvisation," he said.

Jesus, she thought, what kind of beast have I unleashed? Perhaps a beast was what she needed to bring her out of herself and strip away her many layers of reticence. Either way, Mulder was turning out to be quite a lover.

She couldn't say she was entirely surprised. There was something about the way he moved, the small touches he'd given her in the past, that had informed her that he was as passionate about sex as he was about the X-Files. Mulder was a man who carried his sensuality just barely concealed beneath a deadpan face and Italian suits.

Scully moved away from his grasp and took her hand away from his cock. "What are you doing?" he whined.

Flashing a close-lipped grin, she shut off the water. "Get out of the shower," she ordered in a tone she usually reserved for a handcuffed suspect.

"What?" It amused her that arousal made him as slow-witted as it did her.

Her tone softened as she opened the shower curtain and reached for a towel. "If you get out now, I'll make you a very happy man." She let her eyes move down to his cock for punctuation.

Realization dawned on his face and his mouth opened.

He actually leaped over the edge of the tub.

  
_ **Chapter Ten- Birch and Sand** _

Mulder heard the crunch of newly fallen snow under his boots as he traveled through the woods. Surrounding him, as far as the eye could see, were the slender skeletons of birch trees, glowing unnaturally bright in the light from the full moon overhead.

It was eerily silent, that forest in the dead of night. No rustling of branches or scampering of small animals, just the sound of his own steps making tracks in the snow and the beating of his own heart.

He stopped for minute, winded after walking so long, and wrapped his gloved fingers around a tree for support. With fascination, he watched the way some of the birch bark was unwinding in places, forming little curls here and there.

And then he felt a light touch on the shoulder. Startled, he whirled around to see Samantha, standing there in the snow in her white nightgown sprigged with roses, her dark curls spilling over her shoulders. Still a little girl of eight.

He gasped.

"Hello, Fox," she said in a grave tone.

"Samantha?"

She took his hand in hers. "I want to show you something." She led him further into the woods. Dazed, he followed in her wake.

They reached the end of the woods and found themselves on the edge of a frozen lake, covered with a thick blanket of virgin snow.

Samantha turned to him, her small face lit up with a smile. "It's good to see you again, Fox." Although her body was that of a child, her voice sounded oddly adult.

He felt only numbness, seeing his sister again, in her childish form, her skin weirdly pale in the moon's light. "What happened to you?" he asked.

She shook her head. "You know I can't tell you that. You wouldn't understand, anyhow." Samantha squeezed his hand.

"So what are we doing here, then?"

Lifting her head, Samantha scanned the horizon. "We're waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

She flashed him a disgusted look, the kind she used to give him when he'd pretend to eat worms. "You ask too many questions. Be patient."

The silence became deafening, oppressive to him. He had so many questions, questions that had kept him tossing and turning in the night since she'd been taken.

He had to risk asking one more question. "Are you alive, Samantha?"

She shrugged her thin shoulders under the flannel of her nightgown. "It depends."

"Depends on what?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "It depends on your definition of life."

Mulder was about to follow her enigmatic statement with another question when the wind began to gust, a full gale that nearly knocked him flat to the ground and sent Samantha's long hair whipping around her head. She dropped his hand. "It's time!" she shouted over the wind.

The wind stopped blowing and the heavy silence again descended over the nightscape.

Until the quiet was ripped apart by the shattering scream of a woman.

Samantha's brown eyes filled with tears.

"Nothing lives forever, Fox," she said and wrapped her arms around him, burying her small face in his coat.

"Who...who is it?" he stammered, his heart spiked with sharp needles of fear.

_Don'tletitbeScullydon'tletitbeScullydon'tletitbeScully..._

The screaming stopped.

Samantha looked up at him. "It's not her," she said. "Not who you were just thinking about."

Relief washed through his every pore. "Then, who is it?"

She pulled away from him and shook her head. "She's happy now, Fox. She's at peace."

Grabbing her by the shoulders, he hoarsely shouted, "Tell me, Samantha!"

"I can't." She pulled away from him. "Goodbye, brother."

Without looking back, she walked back into the woods, melting into the birch trees.

  
He sat up, completely bewildered. The woods, the lake, the snow, all gone. He was in a dark bedroom, the sheets and comforter tangled around his feet, perspiration coating his bare upper chest and his heart beating madly.

Only a nightmare.

No, it had felt real. He had been there, in those woods, walking with his sister. Mulder could recall every minute detail, the feel of the tremendous wind pressing his face, the high-pitched screaming of the woman, echoing over the lake and all around his head.

A bad dream. An intense, hallucinatory dream, but a dream nonetheless.

His eyes adjusted to the dim room, he saw Scully, curled in a small ball on her side, wearing only her panties. Mulder touched her arm, relieved to find it still warm. He could hear her regular breathing in the silent room and his hand trailed down to her breastbone and felt the steady, slow drumming of her heartbeat.

Okay, a bad dream. He had a lot of those. He could deal with it. Nightmares had been a part of his life, his sleep, for so long that they rarely fazed him, no matter how terrifying they had been.

But this had seemed so real.

Sighing, Mulder realized he'd never get back to sleep, at least not right away. He bent his head to Scully's neck, inhaling deeply the rich perfume of soap and her own spicy personal smell. Soothed, he climbed out of bed, his legs shaky and weak. He straightened the twisted bedding and covered Scully with the quilt.

In the living room, he turned on a lamp and settled on the couch, trying to parse the meaning of the dream. Freud and Jung had volumes to say about the significance of dream imagery, but he rejected the meanings he'd studied as a psychology student. The dream hadn't been about abandonment or fear of commitment or his latent Oedipus Complex. It had been just what it had appeared to be. It was a dream of death.

A portent, an omen.

Someone had died.

All he could do was wait and see. It had already happened, he somehow knew, and there was nothing he could do to change things.

Think of something good, he told himself. Mulder rose from the couch and headed for the kitchen. He found a bottle of water in the fridge and downed half of it in one draught, the cold water rushing down his dehydrated throat and into his stomach.

He switched the kitchen radio on to the soft, soothing prattle of NPR, something about the Lewinsky scandal. Scully may have been shot, they may have been slowly falling in love in the refuge of her apartment, he may have been having dreams of death, but in the greater world scandals were brewing, and politicians were still lying.

Somehow, that thought was immensely comforting.

The radio program switched to a music segment and soft Latin music filled the room. Sitting at the kitchen table, Mulder suddenly longed for a simpler life, in which he could take Scully to the hot sand of a Mexican beach. He pictured rubbing sunscreen into her pale skin, her lush curves in a black bikini, the two of them sipping margaritas in lounge chairs, staring at the rolling waves of the Caribbean. Blue skies, hot sun, endless sand, was it too much to ask? Too much to want to take her back to a dim, cool hotel room and peel the bikini off her body and taste the tang of salt and sweat and coconut oil on her skin?

Sighing, he supposed it was.

Someday, he vowed. Someday when it's all over, if we get through it with our sanity and bodies intact, I'll take her to Mexico and we'll spend a week doing nothing but loving each other.

And then another thought struck him. Why wait? If something happened, if their luck finally ran out, they'd never have that time together.

Mulder made a mental note to himself to call his travel agent on Monday and book a trip to Cozumel. Her birthday was coming up in a few weeks. They could find a way to get away for a three to four day weekend. He had tons of vacation time accrued and, God only knew, the Bureau owed Scully after she'd nearly lost her life from friendly fire.

Grinning, he sat back in the chair and drained the rest of the water. He was a man with a plan.

His nightmare relegated to the back of his brain, he allowed himself the luxury of remembering earlier in the evening.

The memories came to him in burning, crystal-clear shards.  
Scully's beautiful face, tipped back against the shower wall, twisting in ecstasy as he buried his fingers in her impossibly slick depths. The way she curled up next to him on the bed, the both of them still wet from the shower, and took him in the heat of her mouth. Being afraid to shut his eyes and miss the incredibly erotic sight of her red hair between his legs and his cock disappearing between her full lips. The rough-smooth grain of her tongue painting filigree patterns along the length of him and around and around the head.

Shouting her name as the heat licked at his body, threatening to immolate him in a rush of delicious flame.

Her sly smile as she raised her head and licked her lips, one lock of hair falling across her eye.

It was real, it was happening, they were doing this.

Incredible.

He didn't know what he'd do if it ever had to end.

It couldn't. It wouldn't.

Sometimes he could feel her balking, struggling against the weight of her need and love for him. He wasn't really sure why he was so ready, why he had so few reservations about loving her any more. He just was.

Scully was all about self-control and mastery of her emotions. She wasn't one to heedlessly throw herself into love. And it scared him that perhaps one day she might choose to again wrap herself in the cloak of her solitude and turn away from him.

He rather hated himself for needing her so.

But something from deep within told him no, that Scully had always loved him in her quiet and steadfast manner.

If anything, she needed time. He'd just have to allow her to have her doubts and fears.

Yawning, Mulder made his way back to the bedroom.

Once under the covers, he willed himself to forget the dream, moving closer to Scully's warm body. His fingers trailed over the smooth dip of her shoulder down her arm to her fingertips, curled in sleep.

Mexico, he thought. Think of the burning light of the sun and the shock of the cool water on hot skin.

He could actually smell the salt of the ocean as he fell asleep.

_ **  
Chapter Eleven- Fluency** _

One bleary eye opened and then the next. A glance at the alarm clock by the bed told her it was almost 9:00 a.m. For one panicked split-second she thought she was terribly late for work.

No, it was Sunday morning and it had been more than three weeks since she'd last done a full day's work.

Sunday morning, a week since they'd shared their fumbling first kiss in the kitchen. A week when everything, and nothing, had changed.

Scully had always believed that love, real love, would transform her. All her doubts and fears would magically vanish when she found the man of her dreams. For a creature of logic and rationality, she truly had been a secret romantic.

Now she knew she was the same woman she'd always been. She still had moments when the thought of loving Mulder sent her into a tailspin of tremendous fear. Sitting in the living room together in the evening, both of them reading, she'd sometimes look over at him and wonder, what the hell are we doing? This is insanity.

Her solitude had always been comforting. It was so easy to know that when the day was over she could return home to the quiet and tranquility of her apartment. Time to decompress, kick off her heels and relish the silence of her own space. She had been accountable to no one in the end, her happiness and peace of mind entirely at her own control.

But in her heart of hearts, Scully knew she could never go back to a safe solo life. She had committed herself to allowing Mulder into her inner life, to letting him invade her private spaces both physically and psychologically.

They'd have to make some adjustments once they were both back at work, when what passed for normality re-asserted itself. Simply put, they'd have to find a way to be together and still have time for themselves. Too much togetherness at home and the office could quickly send them over the edge of sanity, she knew.

Loving Mulder didn't make her a better or a worse person. She was still Dana Scully, outwardly cool and analytical, inwardly roiling with the usual laundry list of insecurities.

She rolled over and smiled at Mulder, his handsome features slackened and softened in slumber. I'm going to try, she silently told him. From now on I'm going to do my best to walk by your side, no matter how much we disagree on how to get to our destination. Sometimes it'll be your way and sometimes it'll be mine, but for the first time I'm going to try to let go and enjoy the journey.

With her fingertips she ruffled his dark hair. I love you, she wordlessly said to him. They hadn't yet said that to each other, not in so many words. The two of them weren't good at the traditional endearments, preferring to express the depth of their emotions through a telegraphed look, a gesture, a private smile across the room. The language they spoke the most fluently with each other had no words.

And yes, that fact had often created conflict and misunderstandings between them in the past. It was one reason, out of many, that it had taken them so long to the place where they now were.

Perhaps their greatest challenge ahead was simply learning to talk, really talk, to each other.

If they sometimes couldn't verbally express themselves, they did speak the language of the body exceedingly well. A warm flush spread across her cheeks and chest as Scully thought of the multitude of little ways they'd learned to please each other over the past week. Amazing what fingers and mouths could do, body parts used for such prosaic actions as eating and typing. Fingers and mouths that could create trails of fire on the body and reduce one's lover into a boneless, sweating mass of pure pleasure.

Now she could see the depth of sexuality that had always run in a secret undercurrent deep inside herself. It wasn't Mulder, exactly, that had let it emerge, it was she herself. Finally, she trusted enough to let go, to make love with every inch of her body, from her soul, her very heart.

Amazing what a difference that could make in the simple act of pleasure. It was transformed into an act of love.

And she suspected it was the same for Mulder.

Just you wait until I'm completely recovered, she warned the sleeping man at her side. You won't know what hit you.

Her fingers drew patterns on the light patch of dark hair on his chest, down the strip of hair growing on his belly, to his hard morning cock. A feline smile quirked on her lips and she reached for the bottle of hand lotion on the bedside table. After squirting a small amount of the lotion on her palms, she rubbed them together, releasing the aroma of vanilla into the room.

Scully pulled back the comforter and watched his toes twitch as she ran slippery fingers from base to tip and back again. She knew penises weren't supposed to be inherently beautiful, but she loved seeing Mulder's cock in full form, long and thick, the head turning ever darker with blood with each lazy stroke of her hand. Her left hand found the firm curves of his balls and she cupped and stroked them with the new-found confidence of a woman who had learned her lover's likes and dislikes.

Mulder's eyes fluttered open, turned a soft gray in the morning sunshine. "Scully?" he croaked.

She moved closer and pecked him on the lips. "Yes?"

His eyes began to roll to the back of his head, she noticed with great amusement. "What are you doing?"

Increasing her grip, she began to move her palm and fingers along his shaft with speed. "What do you think I'm doing?"

Mulder lifted his head from the pillow and glanced downwards. His head flopped back. "I think you're trying to kill me."

"I can stop," she offered.

"If you stopped right now, I'd have to hurt you."

Tugging on his arm, she got Mulder to shift onto his side. She scooted down the bed until her face was level with his crotch. With a deep inhale, she breathed in the smell of the vanilla lotion mixed with the earthiness of his personal scent, the scent of a man fully aroused. She parted her lips and let him slip inside her mouth.

A deep sigh came from his lungs. "Twice in row?" he moaned. "You're spoiling me rotten, Scully."

You deserve it, she thought. What you need is someone to be good to you.

The flavor of the hand lotion was bitter on her tongue, but not entirely unpleasant. She gripped him tightly at the base and allowed her tongue to make an idle journey around the engorged head, tracing the ridges and contours of his penis.

"You're good at this," Mulder muttered in a thick voice. "Jesus, Scully, you're so very, very good at this."

Her lips wrapped around his cock, she had to stifle a laugh or risk serious injury to his genitalia. As she began to suck in earnest, her right hand left him and moved between her own legs, finding herself slippery with excitement, her clitoris already swelling. "Oh yeah," he breathed and she knew he was watching her touch herself. A brief flash of shame burst through her, but she shrugged it off, telling herself—nothing is wrong, nothing is shameful between the two of us.

Mulder's rough fingers absently rubbed the back of her neck as she slid his cock in and out of her mouth, her wet tongue dragging up and down the length of him with every stroke. It didn't take much for her to lose it, her fingers flicking against her clitoris.

So sweet, so good, God, so sweet, she thought as her orgasm took her over. A muffled moan escaped her lips and she felt Mulder stiffen, entire body gone taut as wire.

With fierce contractions, he spilled over into her mouth, his fingers gripping her neck. Mulder went limp against the mattress and she let his cock slip from her mouth. He was wearing what she now recognized as his loopy, post-coital grin.

If only I had a camera, she thought.

She rejoined him at the head of the bed, breathing in the delicious fragrance of sex in the bedroom, a heady mixture of sweat, vanilla lotion, body secretions and soap. Curling into him, she smiled.

God, she felt simply wonderful. She wondered if there was a medical paper in her situation: "The Role of Sexual Activity as Therapy in the Care and Healing of Gunshot Wounds to the Abdomen." This was the first morning when nothing ached or twinged. Instead, her body felt alive and crackling with energy, every pore humming with pleasure and contentment.

So this was how it felt to be truly alive. She'd forgotten.

Mulder kissed her on the forehead. "I think you're a keeper."

She raised an eyebrow. "So, you're saying that if my oral sex skills were less than adequate you'd have to get rid of me?"

"No, I'd just have to teach you how I like it." He flashed her an artificially cocky look. "Thankfully, you're a natural."

Raising an arm, she stretched a bit. Good, that didn't seem to hurt either. "What do you want to do today?"

"You mean we have to get out of bed?"

"I'm hungry, Mulder."

He glanced at the clock. "Are you planning on going to church today?"

She shook her head. "Not today. I committed a mortal sin and I won't be able to receive communion until I've confessed."

His face turned grave. Oh dear, he didn't know she was joking.

"You don't really consider what we just did to be a sin, do you?"

"No, I don't. Like a lot of people, I'm a 'Grab-Bag' Catholic."

"Grab-Bag?"

Scully realized she was absently touching the gold cross around her neck, an automatic gesture she always made when talking or thinking about her faith. "What I mean is that I don't necessarily agree with everything the Vatican has to say. I think women would make great priests, that homosexuality is not sinful in the least, I'm pro-choice for the most part." She squeezed his hand. "And I think that premarital sex is not a sin, either, not when there is genuine depth of feeling between the two people involved."

"Is it hard to reconcile all that with what you grew up learning?"

"Sometimes. But just because I don't agree with what the hierarchy says doesn't mean my faith is any less."

Mulder brushed his cheek against hers, stubble scraping on smooth flesh. "I envy your faith sometimes, Scully."

"You have faith, too, Mulder. You just believe in different things, like lights in the sky."

He grinned. "Perhaps I do."

She sat up, and again, no real soreness. "If I don't go to the bathroom, you're not going to want to share a bed with me anymore, Mulder."

Crossing his arms at his chest, he stuck his tongue out at her, a gesture that was so silly and entirely out of character for him that she nearly fell over laughing. As it was, she barely made it to the bathroom without wetting her pants.

When she stepped out of the bathroom, clean from a shower and wrapped in her bathrobe, she smelled the aroma of something frying in butter and coffee brewing.

In the kitchen, clad only in his boxers, Mulder was standing by the stove. He waved a spatula at her. "Breakfast is almost ready, princess."

She wrinkled her nose at the endearment, even though she knew he only meant it in jest. She devoutly hoped that they wouldn't start calling each other by silly pet names. God, what was it that couple called each other during the Van Blundht case? Oh yes, Sweet Baboo ... Disgusting.

"Coffee?" he offered. She wasn't supposed to be drinking it yet, since it was harsh on the stomach, but she longed for the rich taste of French Roast mixed with milk. You could say what you wanted about Mulder's culinary skills, but the man knew how to make a mean pot of coffee. She nodded at his offer.

"Sit down on the couch," he said, pouring a mugful for her.  
"I've got the Sunday Post and the Times and we can have breakfast and watch all the political talk shows."

"You're revoltingly cheerful this morning, Mulder."

"This is what morning sex does to me, Scully," he said in a tone of mock solemnity. He handed her the mug.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind." She took a sip of the coffee. Oh, wonderful, nearly as good as sex, hot and mellow, flowing straight into her stomach.

"Go," he said, waving her into the living room. "I have to flip the omelet and it might not be a pretty sight."

The omelet was surprisingly good, if a little misshapen, filled with cheddar cheese and mushrooms. The coffee was better than good, but she allowed herself only one cup, switching to orange juice after that.

They watched the pundits argue on the McLaughlin Group, laughing at the way they got into such a lather about Ken Starr. After the breakfast dishes were cleared, she lay with her head in Mulder's lap, reading the Post.

She glanced up at him, still watching the political idiocy with amusement on his face. He was sickeningly sexy right now, wearing only his plaid boxers and glasses. She briefly plotted to flush his contact lenses down the toilet in the middle of the night.

It was one of those rare times when it felt so damn normal, to have a quiet Sunday together- breakfast, coffee, papers and sex. To read the Metro section of the paper while he laughed at Eleanor Clift and absently stroked her hair. Shadowy men smoking cigarettes, mutants and the Hoover Building seemed far, far away.

Remember this so you can enjoy this next week while you're shuffling papers in the bullpen, she told herself.

The ringing of the phone made them both lift their heads. "I'll get it," said Mulder and he slid out from under her to pick up the phone across the room.

"Hello?" he said. "Yes, this is he."

No, she thought. No business, no Bureau, no informants today. This is our day.

"Aunt Jean, it's been a long time..."

Abruptly, he took the cordless phone into the bedroom and shut the door.

Aunt Jean? She didn't even know he had an aunt, although Mulder wasn't one to sit around and tell family stories or head off for Mulder family reunions.

A long time passed and still the door remained closed. She could no longer hear the sound of his voice from behind the door. She sat up, body gone tense.

The phone call obviously hadn't brought good news.

She went to the bedroom, heart beating rapidly. Did she dare invade his privacy?

Yes, yes she did. She opened the door and found Mulder sitting on the bed, staring at the white phone in his hand as if it were the most fascinating thing on earth.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly.

He looked up, eyes dull and unfocused. Mulder shrugged. "I think so," he said, voice flatter than normal.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She sat next to him and took his hand.

He shut his eyes. "It's my mother. She's dead."

End of Part 2 of 5.


	3. Chapter 3

_ **Chapter Twelve- Stairway** _

He saw nothing, felt nothing, was only aware of a high, keening buzz of white noise blocking out everything else from his consciousness.

Blank. Empty.

Mulder didn't hear the door open, or see his lover standing in the doorway, her brow furrowed with concern. Eventually, though, her words did register in his brain. "Are you okay?"

His eyes slowly rose to meet hers. "I think so."

Cool, strong fingers wrapped around his own but he barely felt them. He was a thousand miles away, walking in the forest of birches.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

It was easier to close his eyes and allow the soothing darkness to swallow him whole. He licked his lips, his mouth gone dry.

"It's my mother. She's dead."

Scully's fingers tightened their grip. "Oh, Mulder, I'm so sorry."

The buzzing sound abruptly stopped and his ears registered the normal sounds of the apartment—the TV in the living room, a car starting down the street, the whining of a vacuum upstairs.

"I think I need to be alone."

Her soft lips slid down his cheek and stopped to rest at the spot on his skin where he knew his mole was. "Maybe you'd feel better if you talked about it."

A small spark of anger lit in him and he rolled his eyes. "That's fine advice coming from you, Dr. I-Don't-Want-to-Talk-About-It."

Scully's voice was even. "We're not talking about me right now, Mulder. We're talking about you."

He tugged his hand away and stood up. "I think I'm going to go for a run."

"It's freezing outside."

"I need to run." He went to the closet and dug his running shoes out.

Five minutes later he was out the door, taking off down the sidewalk in a sprint.

It felt better to be in motion, his breath exhaling in great clouds of steam as he covered the short city blocks. Don't think, he told himself, just run.

He hadn't run in months, barely finding the will and energy to hit the pool, either. Losing the X-Files had sapped some of his strength and desire to keep himself in top form. Who needed good muscle tone to run background checks and sit at endless stakeouts? Mulder was annoyed to find himself winded and with a side ache after only a few minutes. Still, he pushed himself to go farther, stopping every so often to catch his breath and stretch the pain out in his side and shins.

Being in motion meant he didn't have to remember. Remember how the dream had been real.

Finally, he looped back to Scully's place and made it to her front door, stumbling more than running, his nose and ears numb from the sharp wind. A glance at his watch told him more than an hour had passed.

He'd pay the price with sore muscles the next day.

Panting and sweating, he unlocked the door with stiff fingers. Scully was standing at the kitchen sink, washing the breakfast dishes. What an asshole he'd been, brushing her off and shooting out the door like that. He stood in the doorway from the living room to the kitchen, waiting for her to turn around and give it to him.

Instead, she looked at him with soft eyes. "You look cold, Mulder, maybe you should get in the shower."

He'd said nearly the same words to her the night before.

Mulder nodded and walked to the bathroom on legs still burning with lactic acid. He stripped off his sweaty running clothes and got in the shower just as the room was beginning to fill with steam.

Better, much better. His mother had had a saying when he was a kid. "Everything looks better after a hot shower." The nearly scalding water didn't do much for his troubled mind, but the rush of water did soothe the muscles in his legs and back.

He felt the shower curtain part and Scully stepped in, bringing back more memories of the previous night. He shook his head. "Scully, this isn't a good time—"

She took his hand. "I'm not here for sex, Mulder." Wrapping her arms around him, she held him close. "I just wanted to be sure that you're okay."

In other words, she didn't want another repeat performance of the shaking, disoriented creature she'd found huddling in the motel shower in Providence, he thought. "I'm okay."

"You've taken such good care of me, Mulder. All these weeks and not one complaint. Let me take care of you now." Her voice broke. "Let me help you."

Mulder felt the first tears begin to trickle down his face, mingling with the water of the shower spraying against his skin. For a long time, he let her hold him, as the water washed them clean.

Eventually, he pulled away and kissed the bridge of her regal nose. "Thank you."

A glimmer of a grin passed over her face. "You're welcome. Now you know it goes both ways with us."

Scully took the shampoo bottle and squeezed some of it into his hair. He felt silly, letting her wash his hair, but he also felt the calming effect of her fingers massaging chamomile-scented suds into his scalp. He shut his eyes and let her fingers work their magic, practically purring at her touch.

He bent backwards and allowed the water to wash over his head, the bubbles oozing down his face and body. While he did this, Scully gently rubbed soap all over him.

It was amazing how many moods her hands could represent. In the autopsy bay they were sharp and analytical, rarely hesitating. In bed they alternately swept along his skin with greedy ferocity and slow ardor. Now, she touched him with only affection and compassion, a light touch as if he were especially fragile and might shatter into pieces on the porcelain bottom of the bathtub.

Scully kissed his chest. "You're all clean now."

He opened his eyes and struggled to smile. "Thank you."

"You don't have to keep thanking me, just turn around and rinse the soap off."

After his rinse, he shut the water off. Scully stepped out first and handed him a towel. Suddenly, he felt drained of all his energy, completely leaden in his limbs. "I'm tired, Scully," he mumbled as he rubbed his wet head with the light blue cotton.

She took him by the hand. "You need to lie down. I remember the feeling well."

They'd both been through this so many times before, hadn't they?

Mulder collapsed on the wrinkled white sheets that still smelled pungently of their lovemaking. She curled up around him, her skin warming his chilly body. With a tug, Scully pulled the comforter around them and stroked his damp hair with one hand.

"I think you're on your bad side," he whispered.

She applied a row of tiny kisses to his shoulders and upper back. "It's okay, Mulder. Go to sleep."

And miraculously, he did.

  
His friends' houses might smell of dinner on the stove or furniture polish, but the scent that hit his nose when he unlocked the door was of dust, stale cigarette smoke and a litter box that needed changing. The house was dark, as usual. He sighed and tossed his backpack on the kitchen table, careful to remove his snow-encrusted boots and place them on the mat by the front door.

The breakfast dishes were piled in the sink, along with yesterday's plates and glasses, and probably those from the day before that.

He dreaded passing through the living room on his way upstairs.

He knew she'd be there. She always was.

The living room was lit by the bluish, flickering glow of the television, but the sound was turned off. His mother was lying on the couch, still in her bathrobe, a cold compress on her forehead. Her eyes fluttered open at the sound of his footsteps on the creaky floorboards of the old house.

"Fox?" she called out in a tremulous voice.

"Yeah, Mom, it's me."

She removed the compress and set it on the coffee table, amid a jumble of magazines, glasses, an overflowing ashtray and an array of prescription pill bottles. "I have a headache today," she said.

A headache, he thought. She constantly had a headache, ever since that night almost two years before. She never said how was your day, or did you win your basketball game or what is it like in junior high. It was, I have a headache, I can't get up, you'll have to fix your own dinner, your father isn't coming up from Washington this weekend, can you run to the store and pick up a few things?

It was the same every day. His mother, lying in the dark.

It went without saying that he didn't bring friends home from school any more.

He gulped. "I hope you feel better," he said and headed up the stairs to his room.

Fox didn't bother turning on the lights in his bedroom. Like his mother, he tended to lie in the dark. He turned on his stereo, touching the needle to the Led Zeppelin album on the turntable. On the bed, he lay down with his headphones on, staring at the pinpricks of greenish light the phosphorescent stars on his ceiling made.

Guitars churned in his ears and Robert Plant wailed about the stairway to heaven.

It's always the same, he thought. Too dark, too quiet.

The truth was, they'd all died the night Samantha was taken. There was no Mulder family, not anymore.

We are the dead, he thought with a grim sense of satisfaction.

  
Mulder woke with a start. The bedroom was dark and the clock read 6:02 p.m. He'd slept for nearly five hours.

He was almost surprised to see himself not a lanky, skinny fourteen year-old boy, but a grown man in his lover's bed.

Hot tears sprung in his eyes.

She was dead.

He was ashamed to find himself almost relieved.

Standing, he stretched, trying to shake off the lassitude of midday sleep. Scully was gone from the bedroom, but he could smell her on his hands and skin. He slipped on a pair of boxers and a tee shirt and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and splash some cold water on his face, still creased with marks from the pillow. He found his glasses on the counter and put them on, his eyes too bleary and swollen to attempt contact lenses.

In the living room he found her, curled up on the couch with the _Journal of the AMA_ on her lap. She looked up at him and smiled. Scully wasn't one to give out smiles indiscriminately and every time she sent one in his direction, he somehow felt he'd received a benediction.

She's not a saint, Mulder, he told himself.

"I was just about to wake you. I know you get crabby if you miss your Simpsons reruns."

He joined her on the couch and put his arm around her. "I'm sorry for all that before."

Scully shook her head. "You don't need to apologize, grief is nothing to be sorry for."

"I know, but I hate to be so out of control."

"That's my line, Mulder."

He bit his lip. "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be feeling right now. I don't feel much of anything."

"You feel whatever you feel at a time like this." She shrugged and touched his arm. "How did it happen, Mulder?"

"Another stroke, apparently. My aunt came by this morning to pick her up for brunch and found her on the floor of the bathroom."

So many deaths, he thought, staring at his hand resting on his knee. It never ends. Who's next? Me? Her?

He'd never truly had the chance to mourn his father's death. Would he let himself properly grieve for his mother?

Scully spoke up. "It's going to be different this time."

"What do you mean?"

Her blue eyes swam with unshed tears. "You and I lost someone at the same time." Her sister, his father. "I remember only too well how we handled it. The two of us, it was like we were having a contest to see who was the strongest, the more stoic. We both dusted ourselves off and pretended nothing was wrong, just another day at the office." Scully wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "It's not healthy, it's not right to treat death so lightly."

He touched his finger to a tear trickling down her cheek and brought it to his mouth, tasting the salt of her tears. "I wish things could have been different," he whispered, "that we could have comforted each other."

"We can't change the past, Mulder, but we can try to change who we are and what we do right now in the present." She paused and mirrored the gesture he'd just made, tasting the tears he hadn't even known he'd shed.

Mulder found it unbearably moving.

"I feel guilty that I don't feel sadder. I wasn't very close to her, you know."

"I know."

"The last time I spent a holiday with her was four years ago and I was only up there for one night. The only other times I saw her were when she was in the hospital or if it was in some way related to a case."

When was the last time? Was it at her house when she'd slapped him across the face? When he'd raged at her with accusations?

Was that the last time she laid eyes on her only son?

Scully drew him close and kissed each of his closed eyelids. "Don't feel guilty," she murmured. "You did the best you could."

"I never called, rarely even bothered to send a Christmas or birthday card. Did you know she called me in December and asked me up for Christmas? She said she wanted to make a new start and I lied to her, told her we had a big case brewing. Instead, I spent Christmas Eve in a haunted house with you."

"Mulder." There was an edge to her voice now. "Don't do this to yourself. You had reasons, very valid and human reasons, for not wanting to be around your mother. Feeling guilty like this isn't going to solve anything."

"I don't even know if I had that much love left for her any more. Does that make me a terrible person?"

She squeezed her hand. "No, Mulder, it doesn't."

Mulder let out his breath and pulled away from her grasp. "My aunt wants me to say something at the funeral. I have no idea what to say."

"Anything. Perhaps a good memory you have of her, something everyone can walk away and remember about her."

His mother, young and in a sundress, running across the wet sand in her bare feet.

"Yeah, I suppose I'll come up with something."

"When is the funeral?"

"Tomorrow, late afternoon, up in Greenwich. Aunt Jean doesn't believe in wasting any time. I'll take the shuttle up in the morning."

Her thinking-line appeared just above her brows. "I'll come with you, Mulder."

He shook his head. "No, you don't have to. You're in no condition to travel."

"I'm fine and you know it. It's not a backpacking trip to Borneo. The flight is short."

"Really, you don't have to do this, Scully."

Her face wore the fierce expression that he knew meant she'd brook no further argument from him. "Mulder, if we're going to be together, really together, then we need to do things like this together."

Of course, she was right. He nodded.

"Being together doesn't just mean good sex and laughter. It means that I have to be with you when you need me, just like how you've been here for me all these weeks when I've needed you."

He smiled. "We'll go together, then."

"Together," she echoed.

He paused and he felt a grin bloom on his face. "Hey, Scully, did you mean the part about great sex?"

Her eyebrows arched. "I believe I said _good_ sex."

"You'd rate it as just good? You've got to be joking." He wasn't entirely sure there was a superlative in the dictionary that could properly express how it felt to make love with Scully.

Her voice took on a maddeningly unreadable tone. "I'd give you about a B-minus. Very good, but there's some room for improvement."

He shot her a murderous look and clutched his chest, as if wounded. "That's a low blow to any man's ego."

Scully burst into the merry peals of laughter he had heard from her so few times he could probably count them on his fingers. "You aren't the only one who has a sense of humor around here," she gasped between giggles.

Scully, giggling. The National Weather Service must have just issued a wind-chill advisory for Hell.

She dabbed the tears of laughter from her eyes. "You know, we don't laugh enough."

"No, we don't."

"I wasn't always so humorless."

"The X-Files are enough to wipe the smile off anyone's face."

The smile faded from her face. "Mulder, I was joking. Sex with you is—well, I can't put it into words."

His lips found the fragile flesh of her earlobe and he ran his tongue along its loops and whorls. She shuddered. "Tell me what it's like, Scully," he whispered.

She shook her head, pink beginning to bloom on her cheeks. "I'm not good at that sort of thing." She had the slightly panicked tone in her voice that she'd had when he asked her to sing for him in the Florida woods.

He went for his favorite spot on her head, the baby-tender skin just below her earlobe and brushed it with his lips. The breath caught in her throat. "Come on, tell me."

Scully's eyes closed and she rested her head against the striped cushion of the couch. "Okay, I'll try, but it's going to come out sounding stupid."

With sure fingers, he began unfastening the tiny pearlescent buttons of her gray cardigan.

Her voice was husky with hesitancy. "Being with you is like...it's like we've been making love forever, since the first week we met."

Mulder pictured holding a flickering candle close to the bare skin of her back and wished it could have been true.

She continued, "But it also feels so new at the same time, like we're exploring a great new world, like we've never been with anyone else before."

He undid the last button and pulled apart the soft cashmere folds. Running his eyes hungrily along her torso, he nodded in agreement. His fingers drew slow circles on her cafe au lait nipples, and he watched them stiffen and pucker at his touch. His hand moved further down and he traced the outline of her bullet scar, noticing how it had begun to fade from red to pink.

"It's frustrating, too," she said, her voice slowing as if hypnotized by his touch. "I want you so badly, Mulder. I want everything, to have you inside me, to come with me..."

Mulder's cock, already hard, twitched at her words. He slid off the couch and knelt before her, admiring her flushed face against the pillows, her eyes still shut and her lips parted.

She was alive and so was he. Surrounding them were the stench of death and loss and betrayal, the ashes of their lives in the basement, the bodies and souls of their lost ones, but they were alive. Their struggles, their battles had been for this. She had laid him on a table and shocked the rhythm back into his heart for this. He had stumbled across Antarctic snow to find her for this.

There was much more work to be done, more wars to be fought, but Mulder realized he'd found the truth. The truth had always been there, masquerading as his steadfast partner.

The truth was that in the end, the only thing worth getting out of bed and engaging in the quest for was love.

He almost laughed at his stupidity, that the real answer to the emptiness that had plagued him for so many years had been literally under his nose.

Mulder brought her face to his and kissed her slowly. She opened her eyes and smiled. Such a lovely smile, he'd have to find a way to make her display it more often. He found his own words. "I want to be inside you, Scully. I want to feel you around me, I want to disappear into you, to be completely joined with you, if only for a few minutes of our lives to have us be one person, one flesh."

She took his hands in hers and squeezed.

"Let's go to bed, Mulder. I think it's our time."

"No." He shook his head. "I don't want to hurt you."

"We'll go slow, we'll be gentle with each other." Her voice was almost beseeching.

God, he was torn. Torn by the desire thrilling through every nerve of his body and torn by the knowledge that he could hurt her.

He shook his head, unable to believe he was doing so.

She nodded, in resignation, perhaps. "Perhaps another night, then."

He kissed her forehead. "You know it's going to happen. It's just a matter of waiting."

"My patience is wearing out." She made a disgusted face.

"We've waited six years, and you can't hold out for a few days?"

"I'm like a starving man who's finally been given a sandwich. Now I want the full meal."

Mulder kissed her on the cheek and began to re-button her sweater.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He snorted. "I'm trying to exercise some restraint."

"This is a first..."

"You wouldn't call holding out for so many years restraint?"

"I'd call it denial," she pertly replied. "Or maybe just sublimation."

"Speaking of, how about we try to sublimate our sexual desire in a pizza from Antonio's. Think you can do a pizza yet?"

Scully's lips twitched as if she were trying to keep her laughter at bay. "It depends on what you want me to do with the pizza, Mulder."

Well, wasn't she turning out to be a regular comedian? The Devil must be trying on his ski boots, he thought. "I meant have it for dinner."

"Oh, is that what you meant? Sure, I can probably eat some pizza, as long as you confine the Canadian bacon and pineapple to your half."

"Okay, Canadian bacon and pineapple for me, plain cheese for Princess."

Scully shook her small fist at him. "You'd better watch it with the pet names."

"Oh yeah, what are you going to do...Babycakes?"

She made a gagging noise. "It's what I won't do to you that you need to be concerned about."

He rose and headed for the phone. "I know not to mess with a good thing . . . Scully. Or can I call you Dana now that I've seen you naked?"

"Sure thing, _Fox_."

Shuddering at the thought, he vowed to never call her Dana, unless forced at gunpoint. He picked up the phone and dialed Antonio's.

  
_ **Chapter Thirteen- Elegy** _

The living room was quiet except for the crackling of the fire in the hearth and the sound of Mulder drumming his fingers on the desk. Scully looked up from her copy of _Memoirs of a Geisha_. He was rubbing his eyes and she noticed that there were only a few sentences on the laptop's screen. Obviously, the eulogy wasn't going well.

How do you sum up a life in a few paragraphs? She had faced that dilemma herself when her mother had asked her to speak at Melissa's funeral. All morning she'd stared at the screen of her computer, but her fingers had refused to type anything as a thousand memories whizzed through her grieving mind.

Finally, only a few hours before the service, she'd decided the simplest way was the best. Slowly and deliberately, she'd tapped out the story of their summer trip to Europe, when Melissa was twenty-two and she was twenty—all the harrowing and wonderful experiences they'd shared as they Eurailed across the continent with backpacks and a copy of the _Let's Go_ guide.

Mulder's task was more difficult. She and Melissa had been as different as night and day, but they'd shared the enduring bond unique to sisters. Once they'd gotten past the squabbling and rivalry of their teenage years, they'd grown extraordinarily close, even when separated by hundreds or thousands of miles. There was a sheaf of letters in her desk from Missy, letters she hadn't been able to bear to read since her sister's murder. Someday, she swore, she'd sit down and honor the memory of her older sister by reading each letter.

But Mulder...his relationship with his mother had been forever marred by Samantha's abduction. He rarely spoke of it, except earlier in the evening, but she'd seen for herself the tension and distance between the two when they'd briefly been to see her in Greenwich two years before.

She couldn't even imagine undertaking the task now before Mulder.

As if having read her mind, he turned around in the desk chair and sighed. "I don't think I can do this, Scully." His hand went to his neck and he rolled his head, making loud pops of tense vertebrae.

She came up behind him and began to massage his neck. Melissa had been a massage therapist and had passed along a few tips over the years.

Bending his head forward, Mulder groaned in appreciation.

"I think it would be easier if you tried to tell one story about your mother. Don't even try to summarize her life all at once, it's too difficult." Her fingers began to knead knots out of his shoulders.

"You're probably right, Scully." He made a low sound in the back of his throat. "That feels wonderful."

"When I'm stronger, I'll give you the full-body treatment."

Mulder turned his head and grinned like a little boy promised a new bike for Christmas.

"Maybe you need to take a break."

He shrugged. "Maybe." The smile faded from his face and he stood, moving to sit on the rug in front of the fire, motioning her to join him.

She sat by his side and he took her hand. "Do you remember telling me about seeing your father just before your mother called you with the news of his death?"

Her eyes strayed to the very chair she'd seen Ahab sitting in and she shivered at the eerie memory.

"Yes, I remember."

"What do you think that was?"

"I don't know, Mulder. I've thought about it now and again and my brain tells me it was a strange coincidence, a trick of the eyes. But my heart," she tapped her breastbone for emphasis, "insists it was truly him, that Dad's spirit did visit me, to tell me one last time that he loved me."

Mulder touched her cheek and sighed.

She stared in fascination at the dancing colors of the flames in the fireplace. "I hate having to admit something like that. It goes against the grain of my nature, all my scientific beliefs."

"Paranormal literature reports many incidences of death omens and visitations from loved ones."

She rolled her eyes. Mulder had said virtually the same thing when she'd sat at his hospital bed and told him the story of her vision the very first time. And yet, she also remembered the strange dream she'd had when she'd been so sure Mulder had died out in the New Mexico desert. "I know that, Mulder, but it doesn't make it any easier to accept."

"The reason why I asked you that ..." His voice trailed off and she took her eyes from the fire to look at his face, his strikingly irregular features clouded with confusion and pain. "The reason I asked you is something happened last night. I had a dream."

Scully let out the breath she didn't even know she'd been holding. "Did you see your mother?"

Shaking his head, he nervously ran his tongue along his lower lip. "No, I didn't. I saw Samantha. She was still a child in my dream. We were walking in a forest and she took me to a lake where we heard a woman screaming. She told me that someone had died, but wouldn't tell me who it was." His eyes darkened into the deepest of charcoal grays. "It felt so real, Scully. I was there, with my sister, and I heard my mother dying."

She wanted to tell him, as she'd told herself so many times before, that it couldn't be true, that there was no such thing as an omen or premonition of death, but she bit her tongue. It wasn't what Mulder needed to hear. It was no time to play skeptical Agent Scully.

Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and held him close, feeling the anxious drumming of his heart through the thin material of his shirt. "If it felt real, then it was," she whispered.

His forehead fell to her shoulder and she felt a shudder run through her body. "Do you believe?" he rasped.

For an instant, as she held him and felt the tears begin to fall from his eyes and dampen the front of her sweater, she did.

"Do you believe, Scully?" he repeated, voice trembling with the force of an oncoming sob.

I do not believe in vampires, she thought. Werewolves, shapeshifters, flukemen and moth creatures do not exist. I am still not fully convinced of the existence of extraterrestrials, but this, this is different. I believe in the soul and its ascension after death to the afterlife. I know this because I was there, for only the briefest of times. I stood on the cusp of life and death and saw my father. He spoke to me and urged me to return to life.

For the first time since waking from the long sleep of coma, she believed in what she'd seen.

"Mulder," she whispered into his coarse, dark hair, "I believe you."

His answer was something between a long sigh and a sob. She simply held him, letting the storm of his emotions take him completely over. There was nothing she could do to soothe his pain but be there and believe.

In the morning they rose, dressed and caught a cab to the airport.

_ **  
Chapter Fourteen- Greenwich Mean Time** _

The cool brush of his fingers along her cheekbone jolted Scully into consciousness. Where were they? A stakeout? No, they were parked on a suburban street, surrounded by large, immaculately tended houses and snow-covered front yards. It reminded her of a set of a film version of one of John Updike's novels, a place where tall, blonde people named Skip and Muffy walked their golden retrievers along the immaculate sidewalks, while discussing mutual funds and their new yacht.

Greenwich, Connecticut.

They had arrived.

She shook her head and rapidly blinked to clear her head. "Sorry, I drifted off."

Of course, she'd never admit it to Mulder, but tromping through two different airports and the flight had exhausted her. She'd fallen asleep almost as soon as they'd left La Guardia in their rental car.

Mulder smiled at her and she remembered a stakeout many years before when he'd accused her of drooling. "I like to watch you sleep, Scully. It's always been a private pleasure of mine."

Her face began to flush, thinking of how many times she'd dozed off in front of him and how he must have been watching. She looked around. "This isn't the hotel."

"No, it's not."

She looked out the window again and realized they were parked in front of his mother's house. "What are we doing here?"

A pained look passed over his face. "I just wanted to see the house before..."

Scully mentally supplied the missing words—before the funeral.

They walked through the front gate and up the sidewalk to the white Colonial house. At the door, as they stood at the top of the front steps, Mulder fished in his pockets for a key. She must have given him an odd look, for he said, "I've had a key, for emergencies, for a long time, but I've never used it before."

Inside, the house was spotless and smelled faintly of cinnamon and vanilla. There was no sign someone had died inside just the day before. They turned from the entryway into the living room, tastefully decorated with traditional furniture, nothing outlandish or bright, but nothing memorable, either, Scully thought. Simply your average upper-middle class living room.

She turned to Mulder, who was standing in the doorway with his hands shoved in his coat pockets. "Is it difficult to be here?"

He shook his head. "No, not really. I never lived here. She moved here after the divorce, but I'd been sent to Exeter by then. I spent summers at camp or with my father and only came down here for some holidays and the odd weekend."

"Did she move here to be close to her sister?"

"Yeah, Mom and Jean were always close. They grew up here and I think she was relieved to be back in her old environment."

Scully looked at the wood end table between the cream couch and the blue one. On it were several photographs, framed in silver. She smiled to see a photo of young Fox, sitting with a goofy grin on his childishly round face, holding baby Samantha on his lap. Mulder lifted the photo and smiled, his grin echoing the one immortalized in the photo.

There was another of Mulder, about two years old, splashing in a bathtub on his stomach, the white flesh of his bare butt contrasting with the rest of his body, deeply tanned. She tried, but failed, to conceal a snicker at that one. And then there was Mulder with a mouthful of braces and an unfortunately clunky pair of glasses, his skinny limbs evident in a basketball uniform. Mulder tapped the glass of the photo with his thumb, groaning, "God, the teen years..."

She wandered across the living room to look at some more photographs arranged on the mantel of the fireplace. Her heart lurched when she spotted a picture of Mulder and herself, taken at her birthday party the year before.

Scully wasn't really one for parties, especially parties where she had to be the center of attention. Her oldest friend, Ellen, had cheerfully ignored that fact and thrown her a thirty-fourth birthday party at her house in Chevy Chase. It was supposed to be a family dinner with Ellen, her husband and two kids, but she'd entered the house to find it full of people shouting "Surprise!" at her. Stunned, she'd dropped the bottle of wine she'd brought on the floor, where it dramatically rolled down the hall until it hit the closet door with a loud thud.

Last February had been the most difficult of times for her, still struggling to deal with the special issues of surviving cancer and the loss of Emily. Emily had forced her to face the issues she had been ignoring for months—her inability to bear a child of her own, the injustice done to her by her faceless enemies, everything she had sacrificed for the truth. Every day was a struggle for her to get out of bed, get herself dressed and into the car for another day with Mulder in the basement. Every night was a fight to fall asleep and not dream of the sweet face of her child in her coffin, of the children she'd never have, of evil waiting in the shadows for her.

Still, that night she'd somehow found herself happy, surrounded by old and dear friends from medical school and Quantico, people who knew her and loved her from a day when her life had been less complicated. People who remembered her as a woman who laughed freely.

Mulder had shown up at the party after she'd had two of Ellen's special strawberry swirl margaritas, when her spirits were about as high as they could possibly be. He'd seemed rather embarrassed to be in her element, and surprised to see her flushed with alcohol, laughter and an impromptu dance with Kevin McMahon, an old classmate.

All night long Ellen had been snapping pictures and at some point she'd taken one of Mulder and Scully sitting on the couch, both of them holding margarita glasses. Mulder had his arm around her in the photo, which was something she didn't remember him doing that night. Their faces were turned to each other and they looked as if they were about to burst into laughter at any moment. She wondered what they had found so amusing that night, but had no recollection.

She remembered that night as being the first that he'd ever given her a real birthday present, instead of something goofy, like the astronaut key chain from the year before.  
Instead, he'd gotten her a necklace of fine links of silver, simple and utterly her style.

Mulder came up behind her and kissed the back of her neck. "Where did you get this?" she asked.

"Ellen sent it to me. My mother had mentioned to me that she had few pictures of me as an adult, so I made a copy of this one and sent it to her. I didn't know she framed it and put it in the living room."

She smiled. It was a sweet picture, one that showed their all-too-rare lighthearted side. Scully turned to him. "Why would Ellen send you this? She didn't give a copy to me."

With amusement, she watched the color rise in Mulder's face. "Uh...I asked her to," he said, hands fidgeting. "I didn't have a picture of you, especially one where you looked so..."

Scully shut her eyes and smiled. So, he'd loved her even then, even as she'd pushed him away time and time again to exist in her private bubble of grief. She rose on her toes and kissed his lips. "I'm touched, Mulder."

"And I'm embarrassed that I'm busted."

"There's nothing wrong with it. I could see myself doing the same."

He pulled her close and rubbed his cheek against hers. "Did you love me then?"

She nodded. "I have for a long time, even if I wasn't able to admit it to myself."

"Perhaps if we'd gone to that seminar on partnership communication, Scully."

"I don't know," she said, shrugging. "I choose to think that things are happening now because this is when we're ready."

He squeezed her hand and let it go, stepping back to look around the living room. "I don't really know why I wanted to come here. It doesn't evoke many memories, except for the pictures. This could be anyone's house." Mulder sounded faintly disappointed.

"Maybe that's why you came here. Shall we go?"

He nodded and they headed back out into the cold, locking the door on the way out.

Back in the car, Scully stared at the imposing houses they passed—Colonial, Victorian, Georgian, Mediterranean, Tudor. The only architectural style she'd known as a child was Navy Issue. She'd spent her childhood in base housing, accustomed to living in modest houses that looked almost exactly like everyone else's. Mulder had grown up in the rarefied air of wealth and privilege, a world she hadn't even been able to imagine as a girl. Not that money meant happiness. Just look at the Mulder family for an example, she thought.

"So, where did you make reservations?" she asked. "The Red Roof Inn? The Sleep Cheep Motel?"

Mulder turned to her and flashed a crooked grin. "Something like that, Scully."

As long as there's hot water and a bed that doesn't sag too much, I'm in heaven, she thought. Let's face it, I've become a cheap date over the years after motels everywhere from Saskatchewan to Louisiana.

A few blocks later they pulled in front of a stately Victorian house, pale cream wood with gray-blue trim. There was a wide porch along the front of the house and a snowman in the yard, wearing a jaunty fedora and a scarf. "We're here," he announced. "The Thrifty Scotsman was booked, so we'll have to make do."

She noticed a discreet sign at the door. The Cosgrove House.

Her mouth opened in wonder and surprise. "A bed and breakfast, Mulder?"

"Yeah," he said, shrugging casually. "I watch Martha Stewart, I know all the stuff that makes for a well-rounded sensitive kind of guy." He hopped out of the car and went to the trunk to get out their bags.

Scully found a small, pleased smile spreading on her face. So, he does have a romantic side, she thought. Even as he had been deeply enmeshed in his grief the night before, he'd wanted to please her.

A small foyer led to a living room splashed with sunlight through picture windows framed with diaphanous white curtains. The furniture was an eclectic mix of antique pieces like the rose satin chaise lounge and modern touches—abstract paintings on the walls and funky sculpture.

A small woman with bobbed silver hair looked up from the computer resting on the rosewood escritoire in the far corner of the living room. "May I help you?" she asked, smiling.

They approached her, heels tapping on the glossy parquet floor. "I'm Fox Mulder," he said, extending his hand. "We spoke last night on the phone."

She nodded and stood to shake his hand. "Oh yes. My name is Eliza Barnett. My husband and I own this house. Welcome."

They shook and Mulder turned to touch Scully's arm. "Dana Scully," she said, not waiting for Mulder to introduce them. "This is a beautiful house, when was it built?"

"Charles Cosgrove had it built for his wife and five children in 1889. When Dan and I bought it twelve years ago, it was in terrible disrepair. It had been used as a commune and I don't think any upkeep was done for almost twenty years. Slowly, we've been renovating and now it's at the point where we think it's almost as good as new. It was always our dream to quit our jobs and open an inn." Mrs. Barnett smoothed her hair and sat back down, slipping on a pair of half-moon reading glasses. "Now, Mr. Mulder, you reserved a double room, but I'm afraid a mistake has been made."

Suppressing a groan of disappointment, Scully watched Mulder's face fall. "Excuse me?" he asked in a bewildered tone.

Mrs. Barnett tapped some keys on her computer. "I discovered that all the double rooms were actually reserved, so I've decided to give you the carriage house, which is vacant."

Scully only hoped the horses weren't still living in the carriage house.

The older woman smiled. "Actually, I'm doing this as a favor to an old friend. The carriage house is the nicest part of the inn. You can have it for the regular double room rate."

In confusion, she and Mulder looked at each other.

Mrs. Barnett's face grew serious. "I knew your mother for almost a decade, Mr. Mulder. Teena and I were both on the board of the Historical Preservation Society. She was a wonderful woman and a dear friend and I'll miss her greatly. I would have mentioned the connection last night, but it didn't seem appropriate on the telephone."

Mulder nodded. "That's very kind and generous of you, Mrs. Barnett."

"Teena always spoke fondly of you. I'll be at the service today, too." She opened a desk drawer and drew out a set of keys.

She led them through the living room and kitchen to the back door, limping slightly. "It's just down the walk," she said, pointing. "I'd show you around myself, but my arthritis is bothering me. Will that be all right?" She pointed to a small house that was nearly a miniature of the main house, only without the porch, set back a distance down a curving back sidewalk. "Normally, you can reach the carriage house by going around the side of the house. It's stocked with plenty of wood and if you need anything, be sure to call me."

"Thank you," Mulder and Scully said, nearly in unison.

"Check out time is 1 pm," Mrs. Barnett said, handing over the keys to Mulder, "and I'll bring the breakfast over at 9 a.m., unless you have objections to that hour. I usually just set it on the table and you can come down for it whenever you'd like."

"That sounds great," Scully said, opening the door.

"Enjoy your stay."

As they walked down the sidewalk to the carriage house, Scully mused that it would be difficult indeed not to enjoy their stay at the Cosgrove House.

If only they hadn't come to Greenwich at the behest of tragedy.

As soon as the door to the carriage house was unlocked, Scully and Mulder turned to each other in astonishment. Horses, indeed.

She took Mulder's hand. "It's perfect."

And it was, a jewel box miniature of the main house—a shining parquet floor topped with a paper thin Persian rug in rich tones that matched the jade green couch and the wine red of the chairs. Glassed-in bookcases flanked the fireplace and over the mantel was a framed pen and ink sketch of the carriage house itself, as it must have looked when the Cosgrove family owned the house—a horse and surrey proudly standing outside the building. Scully touched the ornate victrola sitting in the corner and smiled. "It's like being in another world," she said, marveling at the way the Barnetts had been able to use so many antiques, yet managed to avoid a dusty attic atmosphere in the room.

Just off to the side was a kitchen with modern fixtures and a gray slate floor. They found the refrigerator stocked with water, juice and fruit. On the opposite end of the kitchen was a small breakfast nook, the wood table gleaming with polish and the windows offering a view of the snow-covered back yard and the proud lines of the main house.

Scully shook her head in amazement. It was hard to believe horses and carriages had once occupied these gracious rooms.

Back in the living room, Mulder grabbed their bags and they climbed the narrow, musically creaking stairs to the second floor.

Scully stopped in her tracks as soon as they entered the bedroom. The room was large and airy, dominated by a four-poster bed of cherry, covered with an eiderdown comforter of a simple cream shade, which pleased her immensely. She hated fancy-shmancy bedspreads. A delicate dressing table of matching wood made her want to sit down and pin her hair up into a pompadour or lace up her corset. She smiled at the image, wondering if the romance novels she'd read as a young teenager had ultimately done some permanent brain damage.

There was yet another fireplace in the bedroom, with a basket sitting nearby, neatly stacked with wood. She loved drifting off to sleep to the smell of wood smoke and the crackling of the flames.

Mulder's voice came from the bathroom. "Scully, you've got to see this."

Usually, those words from him meant a body covered in mysterious slime, so she moved to the bathroom with reluctance.

She gasped as she entered the bathroom. The modern age had been skillfully grafted onto the Victorian structure and the sunken bathtub was at least as big as her entire bathroom at home. "A dream come true," she said, well aware that her eyes were most likely popping out of her head.

"I know how you feel about baths, Scully," he said, running his hand up and down the smooth white porcelain.

"If I could live in the tub, I'd give it serious consideration."

Mulder glanced at his watch. "The funeral starts in a little over an hour. We should probably get cleaned up and changed."

She'd nearly forgotten, in the wonder of this lovely place, why they'd come to Greenwich. "Where is the funeral?"

"The Methodist church here in town."

"Were you raised Methodist?" While she and Mulder had discussed her faith and religious upbringing, they'd never really touched on his.

"No," he said. "My dad was an atheist and my mother was raised in a strict sect of the Dutch Reform church, where the girls weren't even allowed to wear pants. When she got married she stopped going to church altogether."

"Then why the Methodist church?"

"Aunt Jean left the family religion behind when she married, too. She and my uncle joined the Methodist congregation and apparently my mother started going with them a few years ago."

She touched his face, rough with almost two day's growth of beard. "You need to shave, Mulder. You look like a hobo."

He grinned. "Nag, nag, nag." He unzipped his bag, took out a toilet kit and went into the bathroom.

From the garment bag, Scully took out a black suit. It felt like years since she'd worn anything but pajamas or leggings and she found herself excited to slide on a pair of black pantyhose and fasten the tiny buttons of the wool jacket.

She turned to catch her reflection in the dressing table mirror. The Dana Scully who had been missing for several weeks stared back at her, cool, poised and professional, ready to interrogate a suspect or head into the autopsy bay. She realized how much she'd missed that woman and felt a renewed desire to return to work, even if it was just mindless paperwork. In her bag she found the pair of heeled black pumps she'd brought and slipped them on, once again seeing the world from the vantage point of her heels.

Agent Scully was back. Maybe not one hundred percent yet, but she was once again ready to take on the world.

The bathroom door opened and Mulder came out, shirtless and with his jeans halfway unbuttoned, the sides of his face still bearing faint traces of white shaving cream. "Hey,  
Scully, have you seen my contact case?"

She blinked at him innocently. "No, did you forget to pack it?"

"I swear I remember putting them in my bag, but I must not have." He went back into the bathroom and she stifled her laughter. Truth be told, she liked him better in his glasses, and had slipped his lens case out of his toiletries kit just before they'd left for the airport, hiding it in the bottom drawer of the bathroom vanity, in a place she knew he'd never think to look—a box of Tampax.

He re-emerged from the bathroom, his face now wiped clean of the shaving cream, again wearing his glasses. Mulder's mouth opened. "Wow, Scully."

"Wow, what?"

His hands and eyes ran down the buttons of her suit jacket. "Now there's the woman I remember fondly."

"I'm ready for action again."

Mulder gave her a decidedly lascivious look, a look he'd shot her many times in the past when he'd tried to tease or provoke her. "Hmm...no time for that," he growled and flicked his tongue in the hollow of her throat.

Steeling herself, she gently pushed him away. "Get dressed," she ordered, despite her horrible desire to push him on the big, sinfully comfortable-looking bed and undo those jeans of his all the way.

Scully wondered, was it a sin to have such thoughts before a funeral?

While Mulder dressed, she sat at the dressing table and applied her makeup. She hadn't really worn any since the case in New York and it felt good to smooth the foundation on her face, to cover the hated mole over her mouth, to make her lips stand out with a coat of wine red stain. With a final squirt of perfume at her wrists, she looked up to see Mulder standing behind her, fully dressed in his charcoal gray suit and a sober black tie covered with tiny  
white dots.

He lifted her chin with his fingers. "God, you're beautiful."

Mulder had never said it to her, not in those words. Scully looked at herself in the mirror and for that brief moment, she was.

"The magic of cosmetics," she said, shrugging self-consciously. She knew she wasn't beautiful by the common definition of the word, being short, having slightly irregular features and freckles, but seeing herself through her lover's eyes, she was breathtaking.

"No," he said, nuzzling her temple. "With make-up, without, first thing in the morning, covered in alien goo, you're gorgeous."

The heat began to rise at an alarming rate in her body and she had to will herself not to respond to his touch. "Not now," she said, shaking her index finger like Sister Immacula used to when catching boys and girls dancing too closely together at St. Rose of Lima mixers. "We'll never get out of here."

Mulder nodded and again his features took on a somber cast as if he were remembering their destination.

If only we could, she thought with a private sigh. If only we were here for no reason other than ourselves.

She stood and tugged at his tie to straighten it and picked a loose thread off his lapel, reminding herself of watching her mother giving her father the once-over when he was about to head out the door in dress uniform.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

He nodded. "As ready as I'll ever be."

"No one is ever ready to go to the funeral of a parent, Mulder."

His eyes were sleepy and sadder than she'd ever seen them, even in the throes of his pain the day before. "I'm glad you're here with me, Scully."

"I am, too." She squeezed his hand and they headed out the door to the car.

End of Part 3 of 5.


	4. Chapter 4

_ **Chapter Fifteen- Austerity** _

The First Methodist Church of Greenwich was only a few miles from the Cosgrove House, in yet another neighborhood of tidy Colonial houses. It was a large brick edifice, dignified and imposing. They found one of the last spots in the parking lot and Mulder switched off the ignition.

He took a deep breath, panic, grief and a hundred other nameless emotions rising in his throat, along with his breakfast. The dizziness made him want to rest his head on the steering wheel, but he forced himself to get a grip. You can do this, he told himself, you have to do this, you're a man, damn you, this is just another demon you have to face, so go face it.

Scully unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to him, her lovely features grave, but smiling. "Mulder, you will get through this."

One more breath managed to clear his head and he opened his car door.

Inside the vestibule of the church, where it smelled of lemony wood polish, several somberly-clad people stood talking together in small groups before going into the church proper. He wasn't surprised to see he didn't know any of them. He'd known so little of his mother's life after she'd moved to Connecticut.

Suddenly, a woman in a gray suit came rushing at him, enfolding him in a fierce embrace. "Oh Fox!" she exclaimed in a melodic alto voice. "It's been too, too long!" Aunt Jean, his mother's younger sister, still slim and lovely, her hair a glossy cap of dark brown around her chin and her face heroically unlined, despite the fact that she must have been nearly sixty years old. Amazing what spas and surgeons could do.

She held him at arm's length to get a good look at him, her eyes sparking with tears and affection. "Darling, what a gorgeous man you've become. Pictures don't do you justice."

Mulder had to grin, despite himself. He hadn't seen his aunt in years, but he'd always had a soft spot for her boundless enthusiasm, so unlike his mother's wispy aura of melancholy. "You're not doing too badly yourself, Aunt Jean. You could pass for my sister."

She pecked him on the cheek and immediately began to rub the lipstick mark off his cheek with a handkerchief. "I'm so sorry about your mother, Fox. It was so sudden." With the same linen cloth, she began to dab at her brown  
eyes.

"I'm sorry you had to be the one to find her."

Jean sighed. "It was terribly shocking, but she seemed peaceful." Her voice trailed off and her eyes focused on Scully, standing by his side. His aunt's face brightened. "And who is your young lady?"

He touched Scully's sleeve. "Aunt Jean, this is my...partner, Dana Scully. Dana," he nearly choked on her first name, but now wasn't the time to go into a long explanation of their last-name only policy, "I'd like you to meet my aunt, Jean Waring."

Instead of taking Scully's proffered hand, his aunt gave her the hug, kiss and wipe treatment, which made Mulder stifle a most inappropriate chuckle. "Oh, you two are simply adorable together. Remind me to take a picture later. Fox, after the service everyone is coming over to my house so we can have some drinks and remember Teena in a more informal manner. Can you two come?"

"Of course," he said, nodding.

"We'd love to," Scully added, her cheeks pink from the hankie wipe and embarrassment.

"Griffin and Alex were able to come," she said, referring to her oldest sons, "but as you know, Matt is in Hong Kong, so he can't make it. And your Uncle Tom passed on five years ago." She sniffled.

He squeezed his aunt's hand. "I'm so sorry about Uncle Tom. I wish I could have gone to his funeral, but I was across the country on a case."

"I still remember the lovely flowers and card you sent, Fox," she said, wiping away still more tears. "But today will be a bit of a reunion for us all."

From within the church came the sounds of organ chords. "I suppose we should sit down. Fox, your mother wanted to be cremated, so there will be no coffin or pallbearers. I want to prepare you for that. She will be buried in the family plot, though. The terms of her will were very specific."

Mulder nodded, feeling as if he were in the midst of an insane dream.

"Do you still want to say something today? I'll be speaking as will Sharon Moore, one of your Mom's dearest friends."

"Yes," he said. He hadn't prepared anything specific, but he knew the gist of what he wanted to say.

His aunt again kissed his cheek. "You're a darling boy. Now let's sit down before Reverend Christensen comes looking for us."

  
Austere, Scully thought, as the organ played a hymn she recognized, but couldn't quite name. The church had whitewashed walls and dark beams holding up the vaulted ceiling. There were none of your Catholic Stations of the Cross or statues of the Virgin. It was plain, serious and austere. She felt austere herself, dressed in prim, high-necked black, her legs neatly crossed at the ankles and hands folded in her lap.

She sensed the anxious energy radiating from Mulder, sitting next to her in the second row of pews. He was staring straight ahead as the minister, a youngish man with thinning blond hair and a neatly trimmed beard, approached the pulpit.

Reverend Christensen began to speak. "Today we gather in the House of God to celebrate the life and mourn the passing of Martina Kuipers Mulder." His words blurred into nonsense as her mind wandered far away, to the funerals of her father, her sister, her daughter.

She remembered sitting rigidly and staring at the tiny coffin in front of her, her hand reflexively reaching up to touch the cross around her neck, only to realize Emily still wore it. _You're gone too soon, my baby, I never knew you, I still don't know what your favorite color is or if you like chocolate. God, why do you allow such cruel jokes to be played on me? The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Take care of my child._

Dimly, in the Greenwich church, she was aware of prayers said, the Bible read, the minister speaking, but she was lost in the small San Diego chapel where her daughter had lain in her coffin. As the little coffin had been wheeled away, Scully had thought with panic, what if Emily is afraid of the dark?

The minister's next words jolted her back to the present time. "Martina's son, Fox Mulder, will say a few words about his mother."

She turned to him and saw him lick his lips in a nervous gesture. She squeezed his cold, clammy hand and he rose and approached the lectern. Normally, Mulder didn't have a problem with public speaking, but this moment was personal and she felt his nerves.

He cleared his throat, face so ashen it made his hair appear a darker brown than usual.

"When I was a young boy, my family spent most of the summer at our house in Quonochontaug, Rhode Island. It was always wonderful to wake up in my room there, the sunshine spilling in through the windows, and to remember that I didn't have to go to school that day, that I only had another endless summer day before me."

A murmur of laughter rose from the mourners.

"My father came up most weekends, and sometimes we had guests, but during the week it was usually just my mother, my sister Samantha, and me. Every day, if the weather was nice, my mother would pack a picnic in the big wicker basket and we'd walk down to the beach.

"If I shut my eyes I can still hear the seagulls and the sound of the surf pounding on the sand. I see my mother sitting in the sand with Samantha and me, helping us build sandcastles for hours on end, until the tide comes in and washes the sand back to the sea."

Mulder's voice began to choke with unshed tears. "She taught us to swim at our beach, first me, and then Samantha a few summers later. I remember her holding me in the cold  
Atlantic water and saying, 'I'm going to let go of you, Fox. You can do it, you can swim.' And I did, she let go and I paddled away for the first time."

Scully felt her own tears rise as she pictured Mulder and his mother, and another memory, of Ahab teaching her to swim at the beach in Guam.

"One day, when I was about eight, my Aunt Jean came up to visit and brought us a beautiful Japanese kite. It was shaped like a carp, with long orange and yellow streamers hanging from the tail. It was a hot, windy day and I sat on the beach blanket as my mother ran barefoot in the wet sand, laughing as the kite trailed behind her high in the sky. And I can still see Samantha, four years old, in her red swimsuit, running behind my mom, pointing at the kite and laughing like she'd never seen anything quite so wonderful in her life."

Mulder paused and adjusted his glasses. "That is how I want to remember my mother. Thank you."

As Mulder returned to the pew, Scully found a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. Mulder sat down beside her and clutched her hand. "That was beautiful," she murmured but he only stared straight ahead, as if in shock.

The service wound down with another prayer and some final words from Rev. Christensen. "When a loved one passes," he said, stroking his beard contemplatively, "it is not only a time for us to remember the ones we've lost, but the people in our lives right now. We need to love with courage and to express our love through everyday living, before the day arrives that we'll never have the chance to express that love again."

Scully felt Mulder tense beside her and instinctively felt his shame at having turned his back on his mother.

It's not too late, she silently told him. Love for the dead is still love and I believe that on some level they can feel it.

The minister continued. "Your task on this day is to go back into the world and love."

She nodded, grateful she no longer had to hide her love for Mulder. If something were to happen, if she were to die, or he, at least they'd know.

That, in itself, was a blessing.

  
The mourners drifted away after the grave site ritual. Scully tapped him on the arm. "Do you want a moment alone?"

He nodded.

"I'll meet you back at the car. Take all the time you need."

Mulder turned to watch her walk down the hilly sidewalk to the road below, her red hair bright in the late afternoon sunshine.

It was too beautiful a day for a funeral. Funerals were meant to be held on dreary, windy days, a light drizzle falling from the clouds like tears. Instead, there was not a cloud to be found in the florescent blue sky, and the snow was turning to slush in the unusually warm sunshine.

He stared at the small plot that now belonged to his mother's ashes, next to the graves of her parents and her brother, who had died as a teenager. It seemed wrong that there was no marker for Samantha.

Even if she was alive somewhere out there, Samantha was well and truly dead to her family.

And no, he no longer believed the woman he'd met at the diner was his sister. She had been another counterfeit, meant to earn his trust.

The hardest part about a loved one gone missing, Mulder thought, was that there was no grave to visit, no way to know how to mourn. She was just gone- not dead, not alive, somewhere in between.

And now he was alone.

Granted, he hadn't truly had a family since his sister had been taken, but now he keenly felt the loss. He was the only one left of a family of four that had once lived together, seemingly content, for twelve years.

Even his memories, both good and bad, were beginning to fade and pale with time.

The last time Mulder had prayed was at Scully's bedside, when she was so close to death with cancer. He'd thrown impassioned pleas to the heavens as he'd knelt and wept by her sleeping body, not sure anyone was listening.

"Take care of her," he whispered, just in case. "Let her have some peace and rest."

One more time, he looked at his mother's plot. "I'm sorry," he said, bowing his head.

Sorry for not calling you, for not feeling enough compassion for a mother who couldn't handle the disappearance of her only daughter, for trying my best to pretend I'd never had a mother.

Mulder wondered if the dead were able to forgive.

Hands in his pockets, he began the walk back to the car and to Scully.

Scully left Mulder standing by his mother's grave, his face deeply etched with pain.

If there were some way she could shoulder some of the pain for him, she gladly would. But if there was one thing she knew a lot about, it was grief. He had to work it through himself.

Their rental car was a short walk away from the gravesite. Scully was so lost in thought, she didn't notice the car pulling up beside her.

It was the hum of an automatic window lowering and the smell of cigarette smoke that made her turn her head.

She froze at the sight of their greatest enemy, the man with no name, the man they called the Smoking Man.

Scully fumbled for her waist holster, only to realize she wasn't armed.

The man turned his lined face to her and delicately tapped ash out the window. "There's no need for alarm," he said in a smooth voice. "I'm not here on business. I'm here for personal reasons."

Her eyes narrowed and she felt her hands ball into fists. "Is this your idea of a sick joke? His mother just died."

The Smoking Man tossed his cigarette butt onto the ground below. "Agent Scully, I'm well aware of the circumstances and I have no intention of bothering Agent Mulder."

Her jaw tightened. "Then what the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm here for the same reason he is—to say goodbye to Teena."

She noticed, with a frisson of shock, that his eyes were glistening with tears.

He lit a new cigarette and exhaled a plume of smoke. "Martina Mulder was the loveliest of women. Goodbye, Agent Scully."

The window rolled back up and the black sedan rolled away.

Struck dumb, Scully stood in the middle of the road, unable to move.

Unbelievable. That man had been Teena's lover. There was no mistaking the look on his face, he was a man grieving as surely as Mulder was.

Could that be one of the reasons Mulder was still alive after all this time? Was he somehow protecting Mulder because he loved her mother? Could he be?

No. She shook her head. That was impossible, unthinkable.

Her legs finally consented to move and walking back to the car, she debated about telling Mulder.

She hated keeping secrets from Mulder, especially now, when they were in a tenuous new phase of their relationship. Her motto had always been, honesty is the best policy. Still, Mulder didn't need to know this. He didn't need it on top of his considerable pain.

She only hoped it would be the last secret she'd have to keep from Mulder.

  
** _Part Sixteen- Echoes in a Shallow Bay_ **

They were both quiet on the ride through the dark Greenwich streets. Scully was leaning back in her seat with her eyes shut and Mulder wondered if she was sleeping. If she were, he could hardly blame her. Trudging through airports, the flight, the funeral, the gathering at his aunt's house—it had been the longest of days, especially for a woman recovering from a severe injury. He was ready to throw himself in bed and pass out, and he had no wounds on which to blame his exhaustion.

He stopped at a red light and Scully's eyes opened. "Are we there yet?" she asked, mimicking the whine of a child on a car trip.

"A few more blocks." The light turned green. "Sorry I had to inflict so many relatives on you tonight."

She grinned. "It was kind of fun, in a bizarre way. Besides, you've had to deal with my family so many times, it was about time."

"You and my aunt seemed thick as thieves on the couch. What were you talking about?"

Lifting one eyebrow, she shook her head. "I can't tell you. Girl talk."

"Ah, so you were talking about me."

"She wanted all the pertinent information about us."

"She's always been a nosy woman," Mulder said. "I got a less than discreet inquiry when I helped her carry that ice up from the basement freezer."

"She means well, Mulder."

"Speaking of Aunt Jean, she brought up something important tonight. I'm the one who has to take care of my mother's affairs. Tomorrow I have to see her lawyer about her estate. My aunt witnessed the will and she left me the house and most everything else." He sighed, the exhaustion pressing on him even harder. "I'm going to have to stay a few more days to put the house on the market and deal with her things. But I don't want you to have to go home alone."

Scully brushed his arm with her fingertips. "It'll be okay."

"Maybe you should just stay up here." What if she's in pain, he thought, what if she has more nightmares?

"I have to go back. I've got a doctor's appointment tomorrow afternoon and therapy, too."

"Can your mother stay with you?"

She flashed him a look of annoyance. "Mulder, I'm fine."

"So you say."

"I'm telling the truth. I will be okay on my own. I'm driving, I'm mobile, I'm past the point of onset of infection, I'm just about healed."

"If you're sure, then I guess it'll be all right."

Mulder got the eyebrow treatment again. "Oh, I didn't realize I needed your permission to live alone in my apartment."

With Scully injured and weakened, he'd forgotten how willful, how determined she truly was. Once she made up her mind, there was little anyone else could do about it. Besides, she was right, she was a doctor and eminently able to assess her condition. To tease her out of the crankiness he could feel rising in her, he growled and flexed his bicep. "Yeah, I'm the man and I'm in charge, little lady."

She pursed her lips. "I hope you remember what a good shot I am, manly man."

He had to laugh at that. "I remember it every time I look down in the shower, Scully."

"Good. A souvenir from me to you." Her face brightened. "I can't wait to use that bathtub."

He pulled the car into a spot in front of the Cosgrove House. "I hope you don't drown. Do you think you might need a lifeguard?"

"Mulder, did I ever tell you I was the conference champion in the 400 meter freestyle in high school?"

She had told him that. He wondered what they hadn't learned about each other on endless road trips, diner meals and stakeouts. Mulder opened his car door. "If you get a cramp, holler and I'll perform mouth-to-mouth."

Scully hopped out of the car and gave him a disgusted look, which cheered him immensely.

They walked up the narrow path on the side of the house to the carriage house. "Are you hungry?" he asked, feeling the familiar rumble in his empty stomach. All they'd eaten that day were some muffins at National and cheese and crackers at his aunt's house.

"I'm starving. I noticed some takeout menus in the kitchen. Maybe we can get something delivered."

Inside, the carriage house was softly lit by the Chinese porcelain lamps, warm and glowing with color. Scully headed upstairs to change while he hung their coats in the closet.

Her voice floated down the stairs. "Mulder, get up here."

He headed up the stairs and stopped in the doorway, stunned into speechlessness.

Scully smiled. "Heaven is here."

Mulder nodded.

The bedroom was lit only by a fire merrily burning in the hearth, which made the walls glow a warm vanilla. He saw that a gray and white checkered cloth had been spread in front of the fireplace and on it was laid a picnic supper.

She squeezed his hand. "Did you have anything to do with this?"

He shook his head. "I wish I had thought of it."

She examined the dishes on the cloth. "God, Mulder, poached salmon, spinach salad." She lifted a wicker basket and sniffed. "Sourdough bread."

Touching a silver ice bucket on the dresser, he smiled. "And a bottle of Chardonnay." He lifted the green bottle out of the ice to examine the label. "Do we have a fairy godmother?"

"It's about time our luck changed for us." Scully sank onto the bed and began to slip off her black pumps.

"Why don't we get out of these clothes," he suggested.

Scully lifted her head and grinned. "I think with a setup like this you're supposed to put on your best Barry White voice and say, 'Why don't you slip into something more  
comfortable, baby?'"

"Sorry. I slept in a lot when I was taking Seduction 101."

Scully went into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her, and he heard the gush of the faucet from within. He gratefully removed his suit and put on a black tee shirt and jeans. Finally, he could relax after the overwhelming stress of the day.

Settling in front of the fire, he found a small note on the cloth, next to a plate of chocolate-chip cookies.

_I'm sure you two have had a long day, so please enjoy some  
dinner on us._

_Tom and Eliza Barnett_

Scully emerged from the bathroom, wearing a bathrobe that was new to him, the palest cream silk splashed with abstract red poppies around the hem. She'd washed off her makeup and he was pleased to notice the reappearance of the absurdly sensual beauty mark above the curve of her upper lip.

"I started the tub," she said, sitting down beside him. "It'll take a long time to fill something that big."

He passed her the note and she shook her head. "Just when my faith in the human race is nearly gone, something like this reminds me that there are good people out there."

Mulder didn't respond, too engrossed in the way the folds of her robe were parting to reveal the gentle curves of her cleavage. Had it really been only a day since he'd last touched her breasts?

They piled their plates high with their surprise dinner, moaning in appreciation of the first real meal all day.

Scully tipped her head back to drink from her glass of wine and he wanted to lean over and take a Dracula bite of the smooth flesh of her neck. She licked a few fallen drops of wine from her lower lip. "This is the first time I've had wine since—"

"We should have a toast," he said, lifting his glass.

"To our new life," she said, clinking his glass with her own.

"To our new life," he repeated. "Working, living, loving. Together. No secrets, no lies."

Abruptly, she looked down into her lap and he wondered what he'd said to make her face go so pale.

She looked up, blue eyes huge and impossibly sad. "Mulder, I have to tell you something."

Here it comes, he frantically thought, here is where she tells me that it can't possibly work, that this is a mistake, that she can't, doesn't, won't need me, want me, love me.

Her voice was small and he noticed how her hand shook as she gripped her glass of wine. "Something happened today at the cemetery. I wasn't going to tell you because this has been hard enough on you, but Mulder, I can't lie to you."

He touched her hand, trying to reassure her, and himself.

"When I left you up at your mother's gravesite and went down to the car, I saw him. The Smoking Man."

Anger flared in him, tensing all his muscles at once and making his mouth go dry. "What the hell was he doing there?"

Scully took a fortifying sip of her wine. "He told me he was there for personal reasons, Mulder."

He shut his eyes. So it was true, everything he'd begun to suspect over the years about his mother and that man. The anger was replaced by a thick blanket of sorrow as he realized how he'd never truly known his mother. How he never would know.

"It makes me angry," she said. "A time like this should have nothing to do with those people. This is us, this is our personal business but he had to pop up to remind us that we have no private lives, that everything we do has to do with them."

Sighing, he nodded. There was no escape for them, not even on the day of his mother's funeral.

"Was I wrong to have told you?" Her voice sounded unusually high and girlish.

Mulder opened his eyes and tried to smile for her benefit. "No," he said. "I don't want us to keep secrets from each other. Not now, when everything is different."

The stakes have changed considerably, he thought, looking at the mournful features of the woman he loved. He had dragged her into this mess that was his life and now it had become her life, too. The game, the quest, had become hers as much as his.

He wasn't going to wallow in guilt about it, as he had done so many times in the past. She had told him herself that if she'd wanted to leave, she would have done so a long time before.

Ah, the many joys of co-dependency.

Leaning over, he kissed the smooth rice paper of her cheek. "We'll find a way," he said. "We're not going to let them ruin what we have that's honest and good."

Her face took on a fierce cast. "I'm a fighter, Mulder. And so are you."

Mulder broke a piece of bread in two with his fingers. "That's why I like you, Scully. You're a spunky little thing."

"Don't mess with me," she warned. "I have a butter knife and I know how to use it."

He smiled at her, loving, as always, when they had an easy flow of banter between them. Her snappy comebacks had been one of the first things he'd loved about her. From the very first, she hadn't been intimidated by his reputation. She'd stood up to him, all 5'2" of her, looking him straight in the eye, ready to sass back with impunity.

"We're going to be okay," he said, more to reassure himself than her.

"We always are."

After they'd finished eating their spectacular meal, Scully rose and went to take her bath. He neatly stacked the dishes and carried them down to the kitchen, placing them in the sink, and returned to sit by the fire and tiredly stare at the flames.

Over the sound of splashing and the hissing of the fire, he heard Scully's voice from the open bathroom door. "Mulder, can you come here for a second?"

"Are you all right?"

"I need your help."

He grinned. Most likely, she'd had her fill of the bath and needed a hand out. He'd be more than glad to provide assistance.

In the candlelit bathroom he found her up to her neck in lavender-scented bubbles, her red hair pinned up and her face rosy and softly glowing from the heat. "May I be of service?" he solemnly intoned, like a butler.

Scully languorously stretched one slender white leg out from the soapy blanket that covered her. "My back needs to be washed."

He sank to his knees at the side of the tub. "Do you have a washcloth?"

Her lower lip stuck out, just a little. "No washcloth here, I prefer hands."

Before she could finish her sentence, Mulder was already stripping off his shirt and jeans.

Slowly, he eased into the tub, the water hot almost to the point of being unbearable, but once he was all the way in, it felt soothing to his muscles, which ached a bit from his run the day before. Scully moved forward so he could sit behind her and she sat between his legs.

He picked up a handful of bubbles and made slow circles on the smooth expanse of her back.

"I'm never getting out of this tub," she said lazily, stretching her arms wide.

"Never? Eventually you'll have to pee, Scully."

She bent her head and shook with laughter, as he continued to run his hands over every inch of her back, reveling in the softness under his fingertips.

"Eventually you'll want to get out," he whispered in her ear, moving his hands to cup the soft weight of her breasts.

"Why is that?" she replied breathlessly.

"Because of what I plan on doing to you." One thing he'd learned about Scully in the past days was that she found words to be as stimulating as touch. Scully liked to listen. And he liked to talk.

Her arm reached back to touch his hair. "What are you planning?" she husked. He loved how when Scully was truly aroused, her voice dropped nearly an octave, becoming as deep and smooth as single batch bourbon.

Leaning forward, he pressed his growing erection into her lower back, into the spot where he knew the serpent was etched into her skin. "You remember that bed out there? I'm going to pull the bedspread back and lay you down on the sheets. And then I plan on spreading those pretty legs of yours and you're going to be so wet for me, Scully." She groaned from the back of her throat and ground her back into him, the friction making his skin, despite the heat of the water, break out into goose bumps. "I'm going to lick you, Scully, every inch of your sweetness until you're crying out for more and grinding yourself into my face."

His hand snaked over her thigh and between her legs, and yes, she was already slick with arousal, swelling and readying herself for him. He felt the rush of his power, that he could make her hot, get her wet, make her heart beat faster with her need for him.

"Oh God," she keened. She grabbed the edge of the tub and shifted around so she was sitting on his legs, his straining cock almost inches, shit, just inches from the place he so longed to be.

Their mouths crashed together in a wet and messy jumble of tongues and lips, tasting of wine, tasting of raw desire, tongues twining and plunging and making him harder than he ever believed possible. Just a few inches, all he had to do was move her hips up a bit and down again and he could be buried in her finally. Two as one.

Water splashed from the tub and slopped over the edge and she giggled in mid-kiss, stopping to trace his earlobe with her sinuous tongue.

"We've got to get out of here," he muttered through his clenched jaw.

She tilted her head. "I kind of like it here." And then his cock was enclosed in the underwater grip of her fingers.

Madness, it was absolutely insane how turned on he was. "Out of the tub, now," he ordered.

She licked her lower lip. Tease. Scully must have been hell on wheels in high school, driving the boys at Catholic school nuts with a flip of her red hair and one of those glances through her lashes.

"Scuh-lee," he whined. Holy shit, she'd reduced him to begging. After nearly six years of the frustration of a platonic partnership, he had little pride when it came to Scully. There was no point, really. They'd been through nearly every human experience together. At this point, pride was wasteful and foolish.

Her face softened and she moved off his legs to allow him to stand.

It wasn't the easiest thing in the world to get to his feet with his muscles stiff from running and weakened with desire, but he was determined to get them both out of the tub and into bed. He helped Scully up and watched as rosettes of soapsuds slid down her full breasts.

A sight like that might very well prove the existence of God, after all.

Mulder stepped onto the terra firma of the tile floor and reached for a bath towel from the rack. He handed it to Scully, hating to cover her glorious nudity, but not wanting her to grow cold. She wrapped the towel around herself and began to undo the pins holding up her hair.

He stared in rapt fascination, enjoying watching her in her unconsciously feminine rituals. He always had liked catching her brushing her hair or applying lipstick in the car mirror. Women were a strange and wonderful species and spending so much time with Scully made him feel like an anthropologist on field assignment.

Scully turned to him and laughed. He looked down at himself, stark naked and sporting an erection, dripping water and bubbles all over the floor. He had such a one-track mind he'd forgotten to get a towel for himself.

After he'd gotten himself reasonably dry, he looked to see Scully standing before him, her towel now shed and discarded on the marble counter. A smile curved her rosy lips. "Let's go to bed, Mulder."

"Do I have to carry you?"

"Do we look like Scarlett and Rhett?" Her warm fingers entwined with his and together, they walked to the bed.

He turned off the lamps, so the room was lit amber with the flames of the fire. Scully turned back the bedspread and settled on her side on the mattress. She flashed him a decidedly self-conscious look, which he found sexier than any come-hither stare.

Scully broke the aura of silent tension in the room. "I believe you made some promises in the bathtub, Mulder. Are you going to make good on them?"

He nodded. As he slid in bed next to her, he remembered the night, hardly a week ago, when he'd first lain in bed with her, watching a movie with her to chase away her nightmares.

There won't be any bad dreams for us, Scully. Not tonight.  
It's time for us to put the nightmares behind us.

Scully turned to him, eyes bright in the firelight. "Whatever happens tonight, it's right."

Nodding, he rose to move over her, wanting to touch the contours of her body so much his hands were shaking. He bent his head to kiss her, hands slipping to touch the firmness of her breasts, to tease her nipples into hard points. She groaned in approval, lifting his chin to nip at the flesh underneath.

Careful to support his weight on his forearms and not press into her stomach, he began to paint circles on the silken skin of her breasts with his lips, softly kneading and pulling until she arched her back and made soft noises in her throat. It reminded him of playing an instrument, applying various speeds and pressure to produce different noises from her.

Mulder felt her spread her legs wider beneath him and understood her overwhelming need to be touched. One of her hands gripped his shoulder and the other began to circle and tease his own nipples, which send a jolt of electricity and all the remaining blood supply in his brain straight down to his groin.

"Mulderrrrr," she moaned and he lifted his head from her breasts.

"You rang?"

Her smile was full and inviting. He felt one of her legs rise and wrap around his lower back and he jerked as he felt his cock suddenly press against her slick entrance.

Just one push, he thought, just one tiny push and I'll be there.

He shook his head. "We can't," he gasped as every cell in his body silently screamed we can, we can, we can...

Suddenly, he was very, very afraid.

Scully's eyes were half-lidded with drowsy desire. "You won't hurt me."

"The doctor—"

Just one push.

She cut him off with her fingers on his lips. "I'm a doctor, Mulder and right now I'm saying that what I need is you inside me. Now."

He bent to kiss her again.

God, if he somehow hurt her.

His thought was interrupted by the upward tilt of her hips and the softness of her hand enclosing him and oh shiiiiiiiiiiiit, guiding him in.

In. Inside. Inside Scully. Long slide, in, in, in, a tight wet fist surrounding him, together at last, together, in, in, all the way. Inside Scully.

He hadn't even realized he'd shut his eyes until he opened them gain and looked down at her face, preternaturally glowing, smiling at him.

"You're not hurting me," she teased.

"I haven't gotten started yet."

The grip of small hands on his backside reminded him to do so.

When he'd given himself the license, he'd always imagined that if he ever got the chance to make love with Scully it would be a late night in a small town, on the threadbare sheets of some seedy motel. A night tinged with the stench of death, a fierce coming together to forget, to fuck away the blood and the loss, two bodies crashing and flailing together in the wake of the pain.

But no, this was slow, a languid movement in and out of her depths, like swimming, like moving through the currents of a quiet sea.

Scully had been right, making love with her was remembering not the agony that shadowed them, but the good times, the surprising moments of joy in their years together—the late-night meals shared in roadside diners, the private jokes, shooting the breeze in the basement office, taking turns driving down an endless ribbon of highway.

They moved together in unhurried synchrony, completing the dance they'd begun the first day she stood in his office, young and hesitant, but with an unspoken challenge in her eyes.

Over the crackle and hiss of the fire they breathed together, one being, one creature of flesh, faster and faster. He was drowning in her skin, the soft press of his hands on her shoulders, the wine sweet taste of her mouth.

He almost entirely forgot about hurting her. There was only her gentle sounds of delight, and his.

Scully's other leg rose and locked around his back and he gasped as his cock slid deeper into her. Her pelvis moved harder against him and he sensed her approaching orgasm in the sweet tightening of her internal muscles.

He wanted to brush her face with his hand, but he feared losing his balance. Instead, he whispered, "Just let go, Scully."

"Oh yes," she hissed, face twisting in concentration. "Oh yes."

She shut her eyes and opened them again, wide and staring at him with such love and affection that he almost had to halt his thrusting to keep himself in line. Then he felt the rippling of her climax, gripping him over and over again and he watched as she gave herself over to her orgasm, coming with a deep sigh of release.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven and he was lost to it, too, finding her mouth as he was washed out to sea, lost in the undertow of keen pleasure in every nerve of his body, bucking into her with force, all pretense of caution lost forever.

And then it was gone, fading from his body and leaving only a warm glow behind. All he wanted to do was start all over.

He moved them onto their sides and withdrew, already greedily wondering when he could be inside her again.

Mulder touched her face, covered with a light sheen of sweat. "Are you okay?"

She nodded and he felt immense relief. Finally, she found her words. "I'm much better than okay." She stretched out an arm as if to prove her point. "I told you so."

He pecked her forehead with his lips. "You always have to be right, don't you?"

"No, that's you, Mulder." She curled into him. "Any regrets?"

"Only that I didn't bag you sooner."

She snickered. "Bag me?"

"Yeah, you're a hot babe," he said, feeling the exhaustion seeping into his bones and muscles.

Scully kissed him and somehow she tasted different. She tasted like she was his now.

Silly, really, she'd been his for a long time.

He wasn't going to mourn the years wasted.

His eyes closed of their own volition. He felt her pull the goosedown quilt over their bodies.

Just before sleep approached, he heard her whisper, "I want you to know how happy I am." He wanted to tell her he was, too, but his brain would not cooperate.

And then it was quiet, except for the popping of dying embers.

  
_ **Chapter Seventeen- Thirst** _

Scully woke sometime in the middle of the night, terribly thirsty and a bit achy and cold; all the covers had somehow migrated to Mulder's side of the bed.

She climbed out of the tall bed and found her bathrobe. The fire had nearly burned out and the room had become drafty from the open flue. Tottering on legs that twinged with overuse of long-dormant muscles, she went to the fireplace and added a few more logs and some newspaper. She touched a long match to the pile and set the hearth ablaze again.

In the bathroom she downed a few ibuprofen and brushed the stale taste of wine and sex from her mouth. Slowly, she drew her eyes up to her reflection in the mirror.

Mulder and I made love, she whispered to her reflection.

Her reflection, wearing a head of mussed copper hair and a purpling bruise on her neck, smiled back.

It didn't feel strange or new. It felt a bit stiff and sore, but that was to be expected when a woman has intercourse only three weeks after a serious injury, she reflected.

She touched her lips, swollen from kissing.

Scully poured herself a glass of water and returned to sit in front of the blazing fire, a hypnotic swirl of color to her drowsy eyes. She heard the bedcovers rustle and then Mulder's still-sleepy voice. "What are you doing, Scully?"

Turning, she smiled to see him yawning and scratching his chest. "I'm watching the fire."

"Come back to bed."

Scully wrapped her arms around her silk-clad knees. "I will in a minute."

He got out of bed and loudly groaned as he fumbled for his boxers. So, she wasn't the only one a little sore. Granted, his soreness was from running, but still... Bemused, she watched him stumble for the bathroom. He emerged a few minutes later, smelling like soap and toothpaste, to sit next to her, companionably draping his arm around her shoulders.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked.

"You stole all the covers. I was cold."

"Yeah, I do that."

"I've noticed," she said, smiling.

"Guess I'll have to get used to sharing."

"Yes, you will."

Mulder turned to her, his face serious and sleepy at once. "You know, we can't go back to the way things once were, Scully."

She nodded. "I know. I've known since the first night you slept in my bed, as innocent as that was."

"Sometimes I—" he faltered for his words, rubbing the stubble on his chin. "Sometimes I get the feeling you're unsure of this, unsure of us."

Scully sipped from her glass of water and set it down on the slate hearthstones. "How long have we known each other, Mulder, six years?"

He nodded.

"You might have noticed in all that time that I don't allow a lot of people to get close to me. I've always been that way, to a certain extent. I spent my childhood moving to a new base every two or three years. It was easier to keep to myself than to say goodbye."

"I know, Scully."

She stared straight ahead at the dance of flames upon wood. "You're the first person I've let get this close in years. Perhaps ever. It scares me a little."

"I don't want you to be afraid of this."

She took his hand, callused from weight lifting and basketball, and squeezed. "I don't either. But I need you to understand, and accept, that I'm going to be struggling with this, at least for a while. It doesn't mean that I don't love you, or that I'm not fully committed to being with you, or that I'm going to leave, just that I'm going to have my moments of fear and insecurity and I'm going to have to deal with them."

"Whatever you need to do, Scully, that's fine."

Another swallow of water slid down her throat. "Did I ever tell you why Jack and I broke up?"

Mulder shook his head.

"We were together for seventeen months. It was my first real adult relationship and for the most part, we were happy. Jack was older and had been my instructor before we got together, but it wasn't a father-figure thing. Did you know we had the same birthday? On my twenty-eighth and his thirty-seventh birthday, he took me out for a fancy dinner and after the dessert was served, he proposed to me."

For a brief moment she closed her eyes and pictured the dinner at Les Pleiades, Jack in his best blue suit, she in green velvet. She saw the eager and expectant look on his face as he removed the small velvet box from his pocket and handed it to her, saying "I love you, Dana, and I can't imagine spending another day without you by my side. Will you marry me?"

"Jack had bought me a gorgeous engagement ring, emerald cut in a platinum setting, exactly my style. I looked at it and realized it symbolized everything I thought I wanted—marriage to a good man whom I loved, a house, kids, a Golden Retriever, everything. But as I sat there I knew that if I married Jack I wouldn't just be myself anymore. I'd be Dana Willis, a wife. I'd have to share parts of myself that I wasn't willing to bare." Her hands fumbled to further articulate her words and she shook her head. "I couldn't give myself to him like that, in the way he needed me. I told him no and that was the end of it for us. I hurt him, Mulder, and it took me years to forgive myself for it."

"You were simply being honest, Scully."

She sighed. "I know, but I also felt like a failure, that I was so afraid of getting close to anyone that I pushed a man I loved, who loved me, out of my life."

Mulder traced the line of her cheekbone with his index finger. "Are you afraid you'll do that with me?"

"Yes and no. It's different now, I've changed and you and I have an understanding that Jack and I never did. We've been through so much together. You know me like no one else ever has."

"And you know me," he said, nodding.

"That's why I can tell you that I'm fully committed to this, despite my fears. You know all of me. You've seen me at my worst—cold, a control freak, a bitch on wheels..."

"You're none of those things."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't try to flatter me. I know I can be all of those things at times. But when I'm with you I want to change, be more affectionate, more loving. When it's you and me on a personal level, you bring out a better side of me and I like it."

Mulder pulled her into his arms and began brushing light kisses along her hairline, kisses meant only to comfort and reassure, but she felt the beginning of an erotic charge all the same. When he finally spoke, his voice was steady. "Whatever you want, whatever you need, Scully, I want to give it to you."

And here I thought he was the emotionally scarred one, she thought.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning in to catch the faint whiff of sex on his skin. "I want it all," she whispered. "I'm not going to hold back anymore, if I can possibly help it. I can't hold back, not with you."

"I'm damn lucky to be the one you chose," he said solemnly.

She watched his eyes in the flickering firelight. God, he loves me, she thought, still astonished it was true. "No, I'm the lucky one, Mulder."

Her hands found the knot of her bathrobe's sash and she drew open the silk folds to bare herself to him. He'd seen her nude countless times over the past days, but she still felt strangely exposed to his gaze.

"Be with me now," she whispered, her heart already beating in anticipation.

"Gladly." He lowered her to the rug to enfold her lips in his, to draw her tongue into the heat of his waiting mouth, to skim the curves of her shoulders and breasts with his fingers.

Her need for him at that moment was so great she almost began to whimper. Never before Mulder had she experienced such a rush of desire to be possessed and to possess. With impatient hands she yanked off his shorts and pulled them down around his knees. He was fully hard and ready for her.

She rolled onto her side, facing the fire. Scully glanced over her shoulder to see him still kneeling, astonishment written all over his face. She drew her knees up slightly.

"Inside me, now," she said and heard him laugh.

"I'm not going to argue with you." She felt him settle behind her and his mouth applied wet kisses on each bump of her vertebrae. His hand parted her thighs and his fingers dipped into her, emerging to wetly circle her clitoris.

She reached an arm back for him. "Inside me," she repeated, pushing her buttocks to rub against his pelvis.

Mulder didn't need to be told again. He draped an arm around her waist and she heard him grunting as he slowly slipped inside her, inch by inch. His fingers began to circle one of her taut nipples and he pulled out of her with astounding slowness and then pushed back in at the same speed.

"Tell me how I feel, Scully," he rasped, withdrawing again so that only the head of his cock was still inside.

She shut her eyes, feeling the heat of the fire on her face and a different kind of heat between her legs. "I can't," she gasped.

Mulder began to move in short, shallow strokes, merely the head of him moving in and out and she whined in frustration, wanting the sensation of him buried in her to his balls. His breath quickened in her ear and his teeth latched onto the lobe and pulled.

"Please, Scully, I need to hear it," he said between breaths.

She found herself panting, too. "I feel frustrated," she managed to say. "I want more, I want all of you inside me."

But he kept at his maddeningly small thrusts, just the tip, in and out, in and out, his fingers continuing to circle. She writhed her bottom against him, even though it made her stomach muscles ache. She didn't care, she wanted him deep, she needed him all the way.

"You're killing me," she sighed, beads of sweat trickling down her face. "All the way, Mulder, please..."

In one fluid plunge he came inside fully. "Oh Scully," he sighed, thrumming a steady rhythm into her, pushing her side into the rug, splitting her, so hard, so fucking hard.

She stared at the flames, allowing her free arm to creep down between her legs and stroke her clitoris, as hard and swollen as Mulder's cock. Stroke, thrust, stroke, thrust, stroke... aaaaaah...the waves began to break through her body with devastating force.

Mulder cried out with her as she hit the wall of her. "I can't...hold out...I can't ..." he groaned.

"Don't hold back," she begged, pulling at his thigh to try to bring him further inside her.

He thrust into her one last time and she heard the happy agony of his voice as he spilled into her and she felt his muscles slacken in exhaustion.

For a minute their world was comprised of the two of them, still joined, panting in near unison.

His voice finally returned to him, lazy and replete. "I don't think I'm ever going to be able to move again."

She laughed and wriggled out of his grasp. "We have to. I don't want to ruin this beautiful rug."

"Why do you think Resolve was invented?"

"Mulder..." Despite the loveliness of lying together in front of the fire, she was practical at heart. She sat up, muscles burning.

He caught the pained expression on her face. "Shit, I hurt you, didn't I?"

"It's nothing a hot shower won't cure."

She stood, smothering a groan at the ache in her thighs and stomach. She shot him a mock-vamp expression over her shoulder. "Come on, loverboy."

Laughing at her uncharacteristic behavior, he finally stood.

Under the torrents of water from the double showerhead, they washed each other clean.

"We seem to be spending a lot of time in the shower together," Mulder commented, smoothing soap on her shoulders.

She cocked an eyebrow. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"Hardly." He leaned forward and kissed her. "You know, I think we're pretty good at this."

Scully wiped bubbles out of her eyes. "Do you mean sex?"

"Yeah." He grinned.

"It's all about partnership, Mulder." She bent back to rinse the shampoo out.

At times like that, she was so sure of herself, and him, sure they could be happy together. She simply needed to allow that sensation to last throughout the day. Take it day by day, she thought, like a recovering alcoholic. If you look at the big picture too much, you'll end up scaring yourself.

Her hair rinsed, she straightened up and wrapped her arms around his water-slick body. I love you, she thought, and soon I'll be ready to really tell you so.

Clean and dry, they slid into bed again. Scully rolled onto her side and sighed happily as he curled around her, back to chest. She would never tell him, but it felt incredibly safe to be held like that in bed.

"This wasn't the worst day of my life, after all," he said, following it with a yawn.

"I'm glad, Mulder."

"It's easier, somehow, when we're together, working together..." his words slurred into sleepy meter.

"We're together," she whispered, stroking his arm until she heard his breathing even into slumber.

End of Part 4 of 5.


	5. Chapter 5

_ **Chapter Eighteen- Away** _

_i like my body when it is with your  
body. It is so quite a new thing.  
Muscles better and nerves more.  
i like your body. i like what it does,  
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine  
of your body and its bones, and the trembling-  
firm-smoothness and which i will  
again and again and again  
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,  
i like slowly stroking the shocking fuzz  
of your electric fur, and what-is-it-comes  
over parting flesh . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,  
and possibly i like the thrill  
of under me you quite so new._

_e.e. cummings_

As the plane idled on the runway awaiting takeoff, Scully shut her eyes and willed herself to sink into sleep. Crammed into the window seat, she tried to stretch her aching legs and wondered how someone as tall as Mulder bore so many flights. She loosened the seatbelt, as it was digging into her stomach too much for comfort.

She felt herself smiling at the reason why her legs and stomach muscles were sore. It was nothing a hot bath and a session with Shelagh, her physical therapist, couldn't help. It had been worth a little discomfort.

Her fingers clutched into fists as the plane sped down the runway. Even after hundreds of flights over the past years, takeoff unnerved her. She had intimate knowledge of the physics of plane flight, but a small, stubborn part of her brain refused to believe such a huge piece of metal could safely soar into the air. Scully squeezed her eyes tighter and silently said a quick prayer.

In accordance with the laws of physics, the Washington D.C.-bound flight left the ground and soon New York City was far below.

Scully's ears began to pop and she reached under the seat for her purse, rummaging around for the pack of gum she'd tucked inside at the airport gift shop. She spotted a card-sized envelope of creamy white wedged between a copy of Newsweek and her wallet. Her name was scrawled across the front in Mulder's distinctive handwriting. He must have slipped it inside while she was in the bathroom.

Smiling, she opened the envelope and drew out a 4"x6" photograph. It was the birthday party picture of Mulder and her on the couch. She hadn't even noticed that he'd taken it from his mother's living room. Mulder could have a fine career as a pickpocket if the Bureau ever let him go, she thought, remembering how once he'd gone so far as to steal a laptop computer from a crime scene without anyone noticing.

She stared at their faces in the photo, unaccountably happy-looking, even in the midst of what was one of the darkest seasons for them. Looking at their body language, the way they were smiling at each other and seemed to be entwined even though they weren't even really touching, she wondered how the truth had eluded them for so long.

The heat of a hundred new memories flooded through her mind and tears filled her eyes. She brushed them away with the back of her hand, blinking rapidly.

The passenger next to her, a very proper elderly woman in an expensive violet wool suit, smelling strongly of Arpege, gently touched her arm. "Are you all right, dear?" she asked, concern on her face.

Scully put the photo back in her purse and nodded her head. "Oh yes," she said. "I'm fine."

And for once, she meant it.

  
As soon as he returned to Greenwich from the airport, Mulder checked into the Sheraton and then met with the realtor to draw up the paperwork to put his mother's house on the market. In the late afternoon he drove to the house with a carload of boxes, to tackle her belongings.

The first floor was easy. Except for the books and photographs, everything was to go to a women's shelter his aunt has recommended, being a member of their board. He phoned them and they promised to send out a truck and some volunteers the next afternoon to pick everything up. All the furniture upstairs, and her clothes, would go to the House of Ruth, too. He'd offered the pick of his mother's wardrobe to his aunt, but she'd demurred, since she was taller than her sister had been.

The shining mahogany jewelry box on top of the dresser was more difficult. There were some lovely things in there—a string of luminous pearls, a pair of diamond studs, some sapphire and diamond tennis bracelets. Some of the jewelry had been given to her by her parents, some by his father. He briefly considered giving it all to Scully, but rapidly dismissed the thought. She wasn't one for flashy accessories and it seemed somehow morbid to lavish her with his dead mother's jewelry.

He set the box aside, deciding to place it all in a safety deposit box. Perhaps someday, somehow, he'd have a daughter who might appreciate having something that had once belonged to her grandmother.

Mulder closed his eyes and pictured a young woman, tall like him, with wavy red hair and blue eyes. He knew he and Scully would never have that daughter, but he couldn't help imagining her all the same, wondering whose nose she'd get, or if she'd smile like Samantha or Melissa.

There are other ways, he told himself. Having a family doesn't necessarily mean the traditional method.

He wondered if they'd ever survive to even consider the possibility.

His mother's desk and dresser drawers revealed no secrets, no letters, journals or mysterious photos. It shamed him that he'd hoped that he might find something. It was all rather impersonal, neat files of bills and tax returns, correspondence for the various charities she'd been involved in over the years. Nothing private, nothing intimate, nothing that revealed the Sphinx-like state of his mother's life.

Mulder hauled trash bags full of old bills, magazines and toiletries to the trashcans out back. He emptied out the cupboards and set out the boxes and cans of non-perishables for the shelter. He tried his best not to associate the cans of tomato soup and copies of Vogue with the woman who had just a few days before lived and breathed and been his mother.

It was easier that way.

Around 7:00, as he was knee-deep in winter coats, the doorbell rang. Ah yes, Aunt Jean, here to nosily check on his progress.

Instead, he opened the door to reveal a small man bundled in an ancient Army surplus parka.

"Hey Mulder," Frohike said.

"How...how did you find me here?"

"I called the enchanting Dr. Scully and she told me that if you weren't at the hotel, you'd be here."

"What are you doing all the way up here?"

Frohike shrugged. "I heard the news and had a feeling you needed a drink with a buddy."

"So you came up to Connecticut?"

"What can I say? I'm a nice dude."

Mulder barked out a laugh and went to grab his coat.

  
Shivering in her paper gown, Scully swung her legs as she perched on the examination table.

Even though she was a doctor herself, she hated hospitals and doctor's offices. The medicinal smells, the endless waiting and ancient magazines. The sterile atmosphere reminded her of far too many visits in her life.

Opening her sticky and matted eyelids, throat raw from tubes, to see the astonished face of a nurse.

Her vigil by Mulder's bedside in Alaska, sleepless days and nights in the same stinking clothes as he fought the retrovirus.

Watching the monitor display the slowing heartbeat of Melissa as she gripped her mother's papery-dry hand in her own.

Mulder's ashen face when she told him the news of her cancer.

Emily, thrashing and feverish in her small white bed.

The searing pain left by a bullet that had ricocheted through her abdominal cavity.

She shivered again and wondered why examination rooms were always chronically under heated.

The door swung open and Denise Purcell, her internist, strode in, chart in hand. Scully smiled to see her in doctor's mode, remembering the two years they were roommates in medical school, sharing a tiny apartment and a love for gin and tonics on Friday nights to unwind from another week of crushing stress.

"Well, Dana," Denise said, shaking her head of long bead-tipped braids. "I'm impressed. Your labs look great, your muscle tone is better than I expected. I'd say ninety percent there."

"I'm a speedy healer," Scully quipped and then she had a brief, nauseating flash of Fellig's face.

Close your eyes.

No, it wasn't true.

"You've obviously been working hard at your PT." Denise set the clipboard down on the desk and sat down. "I think you should still see Shelagh for a while. I'll let her be the judge of how long."

"Can I still go back to work on Monday?" She realized she sounded a bit like a child begging to be allowed back to school after a case of the chicken pox.

"Monday is fine, but only mornings for two weeks. After that, you can try out full days, but only office work. None of your running around in the field and getting shot at."

Scully groaned at the thought of being chained to the government-issue metal desk in the bullpen.

Denise smiled in sympathy. "I know it's not what you want to hear, but I don't want any undue stress on your body until it has fully healed."

How about the stress of a 180-pound man on top of my body, she thought, and stifled a laugh. She looked up at Denise's face and felt a wave of heat spread across her cheeks.

Tilting her head, Denise said, "Is there anything else you'd like to discuss?"

Scully looked down at her hands folded in her paper-covered lap and wondered why she was so embarrassed to bring up the topic of sex to Denise. Ridiculous, she was a fully-grown woman, a doctor herself, not some sixteen year-old trying to get a prescription for the Pill.

She felt the touch of Denise's hand on her arm. "Dana, you seem to be embarrassed. White girls like you give it all away when you blush. But you know that whatever you tell me stays in this office and I'm not going to be judgmental."

"I know." Scully sighed and made eye contact with Denise. "I was just wondering if it is too soon for intercourse." Such a dry word for what had happened between Mulder and her the night before, and that morning. Funny how she'd been able to beg Mulder, loud and clear, to fuck her, and now she was stumbling over "intercourse."

"I'd say your body is the best judge of when the right time is. If it doesn't hurt too much, then it's fine. Simply try to avoid positions that place a lot of strain on your abdomen."

Suddenly, the self-consciousness fled. This was Denise, who was not only her doctor, but a friend. "So, you're saying that if, hypothetically, I had sex last night, you don't think there will be any ill effects?"

Denise peered at her over the tops of her wire-rimmed glasses. "Like I said, your body is the best judge. How does your stomach feel today?"

"It's fine, just a little sore as if I did too many crunches at the gym."

The other woman laughed. "Dana, speaking as an old friend, not your doctor, is there someone new in your life? We haven't really talked about personal things in a while."

Scully shifted on the table. "I don't really feel comfortable talking about it. Not here." She pointed at her paper-clad torso. "Not in this getup."

"I can see your point. Tell you what, you're my last appointment today. John is in Chicago on business. You want to grab some dinner and catch up?"

On her walk with Mulder just a few days ago, she'd realized how much she missed having close girlfriends in her life, having other women to confide in, gossip with, connect in the way that only women could. A smile spread on her face. "I'd love to, Denise."

  
Trust Frohike to find the one bar in genteel Greenwich that could be classified as even vaguely seedy, Mulder thought as he downed his second shot of Jack Daniel's and chased it with a sip of beer.

They were in the darkest corner of a place called Hennessey's, that stank of old cigarette butts and French fries and was populated by a steady stream of furtive-looking old men. Frohike's face was red and he was rambling. "So then we came up against a 64-bit encryption string, so I found my man in Singapore and he shot me some hot shit ice to break it. I'm telling you, Mulder, my kung-fu was on fire..."

Mulder was only half-listening to his friend's hacker tall tales. The alcohol speeding through his bloodstream made his head feel as if it was stuffed with lead.

The part of him not paying attention to Frohike was back at the Cosgrove House, waking up with his chest pressed against the silk of Scully's back, smelling the musky tang of sex and wood smoke in the air.

"You with me, man?" He blinked as Frohike snapped his fingers in front of his eyes.

"Sorry, it's the booze."

The little man grinned crookedly. "Sure it is, Mulder. I'd say your mind drifted to a much more pleasant spot than this hole, like the bed of a certain redhead we both know."

It was an effort to keep a straight face. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Frohike signaled the bartender for another round. "Never bullshit a bullshitter, as my father always said. You haven't set foot in your apartment since you brought her home from the hospital."

He shrugged. "What can I say? I'm an excellent nursemaid."

"Mulder, when you were over the other night, I'd never seen a man moon around as bad in my whole life, and I live with Byers, the original hopeless romantic."

He laughed, thinking of poor Byers' string of relationships over the years. "Okay, I'm not gonna lie to you. We're together now."

The bartender, a pot-bellied man in a stained white apron, slammed two more shots of Jack on the table.

"Geez, it took you two long enough. I was starting to think you'd gone gay, cause how else could you be around such a hottie without wanting to get into her pants?

"It's been more complicated than that, Frohike."

"What's complicated? You two have been hot for each other since day one." Frohike leaned forward and peered at him through smudged lenses. "So, is Scully a wildcat in bed? It's those frosty, aloof gals who leave the scratches on your back."

"I'm not gonna tell you that. I don't do locker room talk," he protested, while part of him wanted to tell Frohike just how astounding sex with Scully really was.

"You're no fun," Frohike grumbled. "But you know I like her, right? Scully is good people. She can be a bitch, but she keeps you in line, and God knows, you need that. And the woman loves you, that much I do know. The night when I went to see her, when we thought you were dead, I've never seen a woman so shattered underneath that cool surface, you know? Yet, she went out of her way to comfort me. That's a real woman for you."

"That's Scully," he said and downed his shot, wincing at the burn as it went down his throat.

"You better treat her right or I'll kick your ass, Mulder."

"What if she doesn't treat me right?"

"Then I'll kick her ass. I'm an equal opportunity ass-kicker."

"She'd clean the floor with you, Frohike."

Frohike grinned. "Yeah, she probably would. Now that's the kind of woman a man like you needs."

  
As the winter wind rattled the windowpanes, Scully slipped into bed. She felt a mild buzz as she tucked the covers around her and arranged the pillows. It wasn't from dinner as she and Denise had each had only a single glass of Chianti with their pasta. No, it was something else.

She was horny, she realized with a laugh that echoed across the bedroom. Sore or not, as exhausted as she was, she wanted more of him. She wondered if she'd ever get enough.

The skin of his back was so soft, like tender baby flesh...

No, don't think that, she told herself. It will never happen, not for us.

She was sick and tired of mourning the children she'd never have. It was non-productive since there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it.

At dinner, Denise had mentioned how she and John were trying to get pregnant. Scully remembered the awkward look that had passed on her friend's face as she remembered that Dana would never be able to conceive. Denise had hurriedly gulped down a sip of wine and said, "Oh, shit, Dana, I wasn't thinking."

It irritated her that everyone in her life thought that since she was infertile, all mention of babies, conception and biological clocks had to be strenuously avoided. She wasn't a delicate flower who would collapse in tears at the thought. Millions of women were in the same boat as she. It didn't stop her from delighting in her nephew, or stopping to cluck at adorable babies in their strollers. And it wouldn't make her begrudge Denise's happiness if she did get pregnant.

Infertility was a horrible thing, especially when deliberately done to a woman, but she could think of many worse things.

Still, she paused to picture what their child might look like, a mix of her blood and Mulder's. Just as quickly as she conjured it up, she pushed it away. It was foolish to dream of what she could never have.

It didn't mean she was any less a woman, or that she and Mulder couldn't have a rich life together without children.

And it also didn't mean she couldn't mourn the loss from time to time.

But not tonight. Better to glory in what was new and good, to embrace the fullness of a life that now included love.

Scully turned off the lamp and rolled onto her side, waiting for sleep. But she found she couldn't let go. The room was too quiet, the sole sound the beating of her own heart and the wind outside. She'd grown accustomed to the sound of Mulder's breathing in the dark and the rustling of the sheets as he found a comfortable position in which to sleep.

This is completely out of hand, she thought. You slept alone almost every night for six years and now you can't? Have you really grown so weak, so dependent?

_IwillnotcallhimIwillnotcallhimIwillnotcallhimIwill . . ._

But she found herself reaching for her cell phone and dialing the number that was as familiar to her as her own name.

Mulder answered on the fifth ring, his voice deep and slurred. "Mulder here."

"Did I wake you?" she asked.

Now he sounded more alert. "Are you okay, Scully?

She lay back against the pillows and shut her eyes. "I was just thinking that the bed's too big without you."

He laughed low in his throat. "I was thinking along the same lines."

  
_ **Chapter Nineteen- Home** _

As soon as he woke, a glance to his right informed Mulder that yes, indeed, he was back home with Scully.

Home. She'd been the one who'd said, "Welcome home," as he'd shambled through the door with an armload of luggage.

There was no doubt about it, he was home. And for the first time in days he felt well rested, refreshed and judging by what was happening in his boxers, raring to go.

Scully was sprawled on her back, one arm flung over her head, which pulled the cream silk pajama top she was wearing up and bared the gently curved skin of her belly, revealing the pink line of her healing scar.

The sight of the pajama top made him freeze in horror. When he'd arrived home at 9:00 pm, they'd shared a quiet dinner together at the kitchen table, talking over their days apart. Then, he hit the shower and her bed, waiting for Scully to wash up and join him for the big homecoming. And the next thing he remembered was waking up in full morning.

He'd fallen asleep on her. Three days apart and he conked out on her bed without so much as a kiss goodnight. Granted, he'd gotten very little sleep during his time in Greenwich, too plagued by remorse and mourning to relax enough to sink into slumber in his hotel room. But still, he wondered how Scully had been able to restrain herself from slapping his inert form awake.

She tossed her head and moaned in her sleep, but her eyes remained closed. Mulder hoped that whatever she was dreaming of, she was having a better time than he'd shown her last night.

Slowly, he drew back the covers and saw she was wearing a pair of bikini panties that matched the pajama top, satiny-looking and edged with lace at the top.

Mulder's mouth began to water. It was morning, after all, and he was hungry.

He rolled on his side and brushed his fingers on the swell of her breasts, watching as her nipples stiffened to gumdrops under the silk of her pajamas. It never failed to thrill him that even in sleep, the physiology of the human body was still operational. He slipped open the buttons of the top, baring the compact voluptuousness of her breasts to his eyes, the translucent skin that showed a sprinkling of tan freckles and the intricate tracery of blood vessels just beneath the surface, the pinkish-brown aureole crinkled in response to stimuli. A few more circles of his fingers and Scully shifted a bit, but still she didn't wake.

Mulder allowed his eyes to travel south, to the silky little panties again, and his fingers followed, sliding between her spread legs, where she was plump and full and delicious. Yes, he knew this from experience now.

He had to have a taste.

Feeling like a cat burglar, Mulder crept down to the end of the bed, trying to think of a clever way to remove her panties without waking her. Finally, he conceded defeat and simply hooked his fingers on each side and slowly drew them down her legs.

He felt her stir and begin to sit up. "Mulder?" she said in a thick voice.

"Yeah?"

A sleepy laugh escaped from her. "This is the best of all possible ways to wake me in the morning ."

Mulder smiled. "I'll be sure to make a note of that on my Things to Please Scully List."

The beauty of making love in the morning was that he got to see everything in the bright light of day—the reddish tangle of her pubic hair, the small brown mole on her inner left thigh, the glistening flower of her vulva revealed as he spread the lips apart with his fingers, the swelling bud that was her clitoris.

He hardly knew where to start first.

Fingers first, he told himself, and he dipped them into her growing slickness, deliberately sliding around and around her clitoris, but not quite touching it. Scully growled deep in her throat and arched up into his hand.

So, he wasn't the only one who had a morning appetite.

Mulder loved how greedy she could be in bed, like a child who wanted all the candy on Easter.

The air around him filled with the dusky scent of her arousal and it made him even hungrier and harder. He bent her knees and lowered himself to her, in his favorite supplicant's position, ready to begin his worship.

After a few long strokes of his tongue she was rotating her hips and humming happily, a low sound of carnality. This morning she tasted dark and smoky, like a cup of Lapsang Souchong, and he ravenously slid his tongue along the slippery inner surface of her lips and up to push her hard clit back and forth.

Scully hooked her legs over his shoulders and began a stream of unintelligible sexual nonsense. Speaking in tongues, Mulder giddily thought and fought back a laugh as he pushed one and then two fingers into her warmth, her juices flowing freely down his hand and into his waiting mouth.

There had been so many times he'd pictured a morning like this as he'd lain on a motel bed with his fingers wrapped around his stiff cock, Scully sleeping just on the other side of a thin wall.

Dreams did come true, every once in a while.

Her hips began to rhythmically rock back and forth and her vocalizations changed in tone, became deeper and less human sounding. How he loved to see her lose control and transform into an animal, ruled only by her desire. As he began to thrust his fingers in and out of her harder, she gasped and went absolutely still and her fingers tightened their grip on his neck.

Bingo, he thought in triumph, as she exploded around him.

Once she stopped contracting around his fingers and went as limp as overcooked pasta, he crawled up the bed to her, well aware that his cock was peeking out of the slit in his boxers.

She stretched her arms over her head and arched her back like a cat, which made him enormously glad to see that she'd healed enough to do that without a wince of pain. "This makes up for last night," she said, hair glinting gold and copper in the sunlight.

Mulder shook his head. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay, you were exhausted. You can make it up to me."

He chuckled. "I thought I just did..."

"That's not what I was talking about." With a tug, his boxers were down and he was free, finally free.

She smiled, a dangerous smile he'd learned to spot from her. "How about if I do the heavy lifting?"

Oh God, he nearly lost it right then and there. "Will it be too strenuous for you?"

"Only one way to find out."

He was certainly not going to argue with her. He lay down and she sat up, shaking her head of short waves. Scully by candlelight was great, but a naked, flushed, satisfied Scully in morning sunshine was worthy of a commemorative oil painting to be hung over the fireplace.

With languorous ease, she straddled him and without preamble, he felt her hot tightness sliding around him. Mulder gasped at the exquisite sensation and his hands rose to the gentle flare of her hips to support her as she began to leisurely rock up and down his length.

Mulder silently thanked her for the slow pace, for anything more would send him off far too soon. His eyes moved down to where they were joined and he was rewarded with the pretty sight of his cock moving in and out of the red forest between her legs.

"Is this okay?" he whispered between harsh breaths.

"Oh yeah," she said, her eyes glazed with a sweetly tender expression. She shut her eyes and her head tipped back.

Scully in sunlight, her breasts round and full, her lips parted and wet, her skin soft under his hands. She ground her pelvis into him, going after what she wanted, pushing him even deeper inside. It was like a brilliant, beautiful psychedelic vision from the few times that he'd dropped acid at Oxford. His voice joined hers in another inhuman cry as she continued to sinuously move with him, to take him in deep strokes. She was so good at this, where had she learned to be so fucking good?

Overwhelmed by his need to see her face and body contort in pleasure again, he let one hand move to brush against her clit, and as if in retaliation her own hand dropped back and cupped his balls. Mulder couldn't quite conceal his howl of delight. So close, no don't, he frantically thought, but it was too late, his orgasm waterfalled around him, endless waves of pleasure. Somewhere, on the edge of it all, he heard her crying out with him.

So, the simultaneous orgasm wasn't a myth, after all.

Limp and sweating, she rolled off his body and curled up with her head on his bare chest. He wrapped his arms around her small frame, marveling at the strength she concealed in such a tiny package.

"Don't go away again," she muttered into his skin and he stifled a laugh while at the same time feeling an expansion somewhere deep inside. Was that Dana Scully who had really said that?

She lifted her head and blinked sleepy gray-blue eyes at him. "You know, you haven't even properly kissed me yet."

He pinched her round bottom. "Sometimes I like to shake up the normal routine, so it's not just point A to point B to point C. Don't want us to get into a rut."

Moving up his body, she brushed her lips against him. "I think we still have a lot of exploring left to do, Mulder."

His eyebrows lifted. "Oh yeah? Are you thinking about stuff like tying up and garter belts and hauling out the Camcorder?"

Scully's gurgling laugh tickled his chest. "Well, sure. But I was mostly thinking about all the positions left to be tried."

The pages of the Kama Sutra rapidly flipped through his mind. "What's your favorite, Scully?"

She made a face. "I can't tell you that."

"Why not? If you tell me, we can do it sometime."

"It's hard for me to talk about sex, if you haven't noticed. My mother never talked to us about it. I learned everything from Missy, but all I ever did was sit and listen to stories about her exploits."

"You can't get what you want unless you ask for it, Scully."

With delicate precision, she applied a kiss to each of his eyelids, the tip of his nose, the underside of his bottom lip. And then she bit her own lip, apparently thinking. "Okay," she finally said. "But you have to promise not to laugh."

"I'm not going to laugh," he reassured her.

"When I, from time to time, let myself fantasize about you before we were together ..."

Mulder interrupted her. "You used to fantasize about me?" He knew the grin on his face was of the shit-eating variety.

Scully's cheeks developed a rosy stain. "Of course I did. Are you going to let me finish?"

"Go on."

"Anyhow, I sometimes let myself think about you...you know...taking me from behind."

His mouth went dry from anticipatory lust. "But we already kind of did that."

The color in her cheeks deepened. "Yes, we did and it was wonderful. But what I'm talking about is being on my hands and knees and you behind me, or being bent over the desk in our old office."

It would seem that he and Scully had had some strangely similar fantasies over the years. They were Oscar-caliber actors, keeping it all hidden behind their professional facades. "The desk?" he asked hopefully.

She shook her head. "We'd cause one hell of a ruckus if we did it in our current quarters."

"I miss our old office," he moaned.

"We couldn't have done it there, either. I'm sure it was bugged."

"Yeah, I know, but a man can dream, can't he?"

"No harm in that," Scully said and slid off his chest to nestle against his side.

He yawned and pulled the sheet up, feeling the tug of post-coital exhaustion.

"It's good to have you home," she said, apparently feeling just as sleepy as he was.

He nodded and then from somewhere in the recesses of his swampy mind, he heard himself speaking. "You know, my mother's neighbors across the street made an offer on the house and I accepted it. With the money we could get a condo around here, something nice and big, maybe a porch, a big kitchen, hardwood floors..."

Mulder felt a small wave of horror as he sensed her stiffening beside him. Scully's cool fingers trailed in his hair. "Mulder, that's a lovely thought, but we've only been together for a few weeks." Her voice was carefully tender.

"We've been together for six years."

She sighed thoughtfully. "You know what I mean. I think that for right now we should leave things as they are, see how it goes."

How stupid could he be? The other night she'd revealed her fears of their relationship and now he was hatching plans for them to buy condominiums together. "I'm sorry," he said, mentally slapping himself. "Do you want me to go home? Am I crowding you here?"

She shook her head and kissed him again. "No, not at all. But while we're adjusting to all this newness, I think it's a good idea if we have our separate spaces. There may be nights where I need to be alone, or you do."

"I didn't mean to push you."

Scully smiled. "It's a wonderful idea and we can consider it later, once we see what happens with our careers and if we don't kill each other spending so much time together."

"Sexually speaking, it might happen," he said, relieved he hadn't entirely scared her off.

"Maybe we can take up yoga." Scully paused and then lifted his chin so he was looking directly into her blue eyes. "Something just occurred to me."

"What's that," he asked, confused by the light tone of her voice and the gravity on her face.

"I've been wanting to tell you something, Mulder."

"That I have the biggest penis you've ever seen in your life?"

She rolled her eyes. "No, not that, although you do add weight to the old adage about noses and penises."

Mulder smiled smugly.

"I haven't told you this because I don't throw words around lightly." She took a small breath. "I love you."

He pulled her closer to him, tears beginning to well in his eyes. "I know, Scully, you show me every day."

"It needed to be said, though."

"Yes, it did." Their lips met and the kiss they shared reflected the words spoken.

They parted and shared the grin of co-conspirators.

"Hey, Scully, I love you, too," Mulder said, surprised at how easily the words came.

She smiled and touched his face. "I know, you show me every day."

  
The alarm went off, blaring NPR's _Morning Edition_. Mulder rolled over, saw it was 6:00 a.m. and hit the snooze button. As he fell back asleep, he heard Scully rise and head for the bathroom.

The next time he awoke, a finger was poking him in the gut.

His eyes opened to see his partner, Dana Scully, standing at the side of the bed, neatly buttoned into a blue wool suit with a white blouse, her ID badge affixed to the jacket's lapel.

She smiled. "Time to get up, Agent Mulder," she said crisply. "We have work to do."

Groaning, he got to his feet and made his way to shower and dress for another day in the Bureau with his partner.

  
** _Epilogue- Phoenix_ **

I sit at a table in a bare, white room. Really, I should be afraid, all alone here in this immense silence, this sterile box that holds me, but I only feel a tremendous sense of security.

The door opens and he walks in, and I recognize the face that is nearly as familiar to me as my own, that I once saw in so many dreams. He pulls out the chair and sits opposite me, folding his wrinkled hands on the table's surface.

His face has changed, I notice. The studious blankness I'd observed so many years before has softened, his features now mobile and somehow more alive.

Ironic, isn't it?

He smiles. "Agent Scully, we meet again."

I nod.

"You didn't take my place, after all."

"No, I didn't."

"You lived seventy-nine years. Was it enough?"

It's my turn to smile. "Yes, it was enough."

He runs his fingers through his white hair. "When I left my life behind, I prayed that you wouldn't have to become like me."

"It must have worked."

"Now I can tell you what made the difference." He leans forward confidentially. "You loved."

For a moment I shut my eyes and allow myself to picture the faces of my dear ones. I nod in agreement with him. "Yes, I loved," I say. "And I was loved."

"That was the secret to it," he says. And the walls of the room fall away and we are surrounded by nothing but bright light, the warmth and radiance kissing my body.

I stand.

"Are you ready?" he asks.

"Yes." Finally, I'm ready for this. It's time. I can feel them waiting for me to join them again, in a place where I will never be alone or unloved.

With steady steps I walk into the light.

  
And then my eyes open and I'm in my bed as the sun makes dappled patterns on the bedspread. The window is open and it smells like spring, things growing and blooming.

My lover is still sleeping, his eyes moving behind closed lids, obviously dreaming.

His eyes flutter open, gold and green and gray all at once and he smiles to catch me watching him sleep. He reaches his arms out to me and I let my body melt into his until nothing separates us.

I am me and he is him, but there are rare and wonderful times when we become the same person, one creature of flesh, blood and breath.

Mulder touches the new tattoo that is drawn on the skin of my hip, at the flat of the pelvic bone. Black ink, indelible, a Chinese character etched with skill just a week ago.

My first tattoo was born of fear. This marking comes from love.

"The phoenix," he whispers.

I nod. "You and I always rise from the ashes." Again and again, against all imaginable odds, Mulder and I survive. We get knocked down but we heal and survive and with every defeat we grow stronger and thrive.

As the light brightens in our bedroom we make love. We share love, passing it back and forth like a gift, the love we've created from years shared, tragedies survived, injuries healed.

And without separating we fall asleep, entwined in one another.

We don't dream, not once, until it's time to wake again.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Increments never could have been written without the friendship, support and consummate anal retentiveness of my editors, Gwen and Plausible Deniability. They both spent incredible amounts of time working with me to create this story and a simple thank you is not adequate. I'm thinking of making a shrine to them in my living room. And I have to especially thank Analise for being wonderful enough to create a book cover for me that turned out better than my wildest dreams.
> 
> I must also thank some very special friends for support above and beyond the call of duty, even if they did not realize it themselves: Betsey, Blueswirl, all of the root vegetables, Sharon, Sue, Leanne, Deb, Meredith, Kim, Alanna, Shari and the entire Junkie crew. And extra-big thanks to my family and friends who tried not to complain as I chained myself to the computer to work on this story.
> 
> I also have to shower kisses on the readers who made writing my first work in progress a delight. Your encouragement, recipes and nagging made all the difference.


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